Eighteenth International Conference on Interdisciplinary Social Sciences

Abstract

Reporting and reflecting on the outcomes of four interdisciplinary workshops funded by the US National Science Foundation’s Science and Technology Studies (STS) Program between 2016 and 2022, we explore implications of competing understandings of data in the context of new developments in and expectations for data collection, management, and sharing. Specifically, we unpack and compare different sources of interpretive authority underwriting knowledge claims in interdisciplinary STS research generated by distinct epistemological starting points for what constitute data among big data researchers and ethnographers, and examine some consequences of these epistemological differences for future interdisciplinary work in STS. To date we have yet to adequately consider the implications of an interdisciplinary lack of consensus or clarity around often competing conceptions of what data are, and what makes data collection processes rigorous, as these inform typically interdisciplinary STS research methodologies. But these differences play a critical role in competing processes of sense-making, including how data are collected, classified, interpreted, archived, and made available to others. Against the background of the emergence of new technologies, practices, and ethics of archiving, circulation and sharing of data, therefore, we view the need to consider differing conceptions of what constitutes data as a necessary precursor to the interdisciplinary pursuit of such broader goals as open science and transparency.