Data Ethnography and Advocacy Lab (DEAL)

About

The Data Ethnography and Advocacy Lab is a multi-disciplinary research group investigating the constitution, governance, and dissemination of public interest datasets in the United States. We study the socio-technical processes by which datasets get produced, considering how data emerge in the contexts of certain conditions of labor, varied institutional commitments, and technological affordances. We also examine the cultural processes by which diverse communities assign meaning to data: how diverse social groups advocate for data certain definitions and categorizations, how stakeholders determine what counts as relevant data “context,” and how communities decide when the values reported in data reach actionable levels. In foregrounding these aspects of data provenance, our work furthers understanding of both the promise and the limits of contemporary transparency initiatives and regulations. DEAL is working to innovate new approaches to ethnographically examining data infrastructures, work, and advocacy, drawing on both methodologies and sensibilities from experimental ethnographic traditions and adapting them to the study of data environments. We consider how creative computational data work can help expose some of the conditions of data production. Our work is informed by and contributes to the fields of critical data studies, information studies, and science and technology studies. Further, our work helps to identify opportunities for strengthening U.S. data collection programs, improving data documentation practices, and cultivating deeper data infrastructure literacy.

Lab Members

Nicole Choi

Nicole is a senior studying Statistical & Data Sciences and Russian Area Studies at Smith College. She is also a professionally fluent Korean speaker with interests spanning qualitative analysis, foreign and domestic policy analysis, and language studies.

Sally Geoghegan

Sally is a junior majoring in English with a minor in Statistical & Data Sciences. She is interested in using data and storytelling to effect social change.

Emma Larsen

Emma is a senior Environmental Science & Policy major and Applied Statistics minor. She is interested in the intersection of environmental justice, policy, and data science, with a focus on how data can be used to support policy action that uplifts communities.

Mercer

Mercer is a Junior at Smith College studying Mathematical Statistics. They are drawn to the processes involved in data analysis and the broader implications of how that information is presented.

Alumni

• Sena Amuzu (Spring ‘22)
• Anika Arifin (Fall ‘22 - Spring ‘23)
• Emarie de la Nuez (Spring ‘22)
• Sophia Hillard (Fall ‘25)
• Juniper Huang (Fall ‘24 - Spring ‘25)
• Gabrielle Kraft (Fall ‘25)
• Naomi Liftman (Summer ‘22 - Spring ‘23)
• Casey MacGibbon (Fall ‘24 - Spring ‘25)
• Mags McLaughlin (Fall ‘22)
• Nicole Tresvalles (Spring ‘22)
• Quinn White (Spring ‘22)
• Ziqi Zhen (Fall ‘22 - Spring ‘23)

Lab Book

See our lab protocols here.