Datafication and quantification in academia and beyond

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2020 Centre for Space, Place and Society seminar “We’ve got a file on you! Datafication and quantification in academia and beyond” at Wageningen University and Research had to be postponed several times over. On 8 September 2022, we were finally able to hold the seminar and dr. Trista Chih Chen Lin and I contributed a presentation on ”A visceral approach to the datafication of productivity and wellbeing in the academy”

In this seminar, we discuss how ‘data visceralization’ can help us understand and conceive differently of universities’ approaches to questions of ‘productivity’, ‘wellbeing’ and ‘vulnerability’ among university workers. Taking two types of surveys on “work and wellbeing” among university staff as examples, we discuss how tools of data-gathering and data-processing may (inadvertently) desensitize and depoliticize the subject matter under scrutiny, further obscuring experiences of inequalities and intersectionality at work. Inspired by data feminisms, we then zoom in on the embodied, emotional and felt qualities of data to envision instead how data may be able to work for university workers in such ways that they create more just, equitable, and livable work futures.

Inspired by data feminisms, Trista and I discussed how ‘data visceralization’ can help us understand and conceive differently of universities’ approaches to questions of ‘productivity’, ‘wellbeing’ and ‘vulnerability’ among university workers. Taking two types of surveys on “work and wellbeing” among university staff as examples, we discussed how tools of data-gathering and data-processing may (inadvertently) desensitize and depoliticize the subject matter under scrutiny, further obscuring experiences of inequalities and intersectionality at work. We then zoom in on the embodied, emotional and felt qualities of data to envision instead how data may be able to work for university workers in such ways that they create more just, equitable, and livable work futures.

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UPDATE April 2020: Due to the COVID-19 outbreak in the Netherlands the CSPS Seminar has been postponed until further notice.

I am scheduled to give a talk during the Centre for Space Place and Society Seminar “WE’VE GOT A FILE ON YOU! Datafication and quantification in academia and beyond” at Wageningen University (the Netherlands). The seminar is scheduled to take place on 14 April between 15:00 and 17:00 at the Impulse Speakers Corner on campus. Given the current situation and the evolving measures taken against the coronavirus outbreak, I am not sure if I will be able to attend this seminar in person. If you are interested in attending or would like to be kept updated, please contact administration.csps@wur.nl directly or write me an email.