ABSTRACT
This chapter attempts to map some of the challenges, tensions and contradictions in the definitions and characterisations of Big Data circulating both within and beyond research institutions, and as they are situated in wider social and cultural debates. The epistemological insights derived from such detailed critical analyses of Big Data can be further deployed to reflexively consider the structure of the readers own research practices, and the methodological principles on which that research is based. Research methodologies towards analysis therefore need to account for specific identifiable processes, located across bits and bytes, people and things, discourses and practices. The epistemic questions raised in the prompt methodological considerations with respect to how researchers go about framing Big Data processes and politics as both objects and subjects of study. This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on the key concepts discussed in the preceding chapters of this book.
