ABSTRACT
This chapter studies the rise of academic data science in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. By tracing the institutionalization of this emerging discipline, we endeavour to capture the power dynamics incorporated within current shifts in society’s regime of truth. We do so from a discourse analytical perspective, asking how the professionalization of academic data science can be understood as institutionalizing a specific regime of knowledge production, one that is based on algorithmic big data analysis. We understand epistemological questions as inextricably linked to questions of power, and study empirically how data science is structurally implemented, epistemologically positioned, and discursively legitimized within the academic fields in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.
