ABSTRACT
Data are often talked about as though they were things. Less often, they are talked about as (the end result of) a process. In this second context, they are spoken about in terms of the data “assemblage” or “ecosystem” they are situated in. This chapter suggests an alternative methodological lens for thinking about the social situatedness of data—that of the social field. In this chapter, I will suggest that it potentially holds three methodological advantages over an assemblage or ecosystem framing. First, social fields are more attentive than are data ecosystem or assemblage lenses to the role of the struggle of those involved in the production of data. Second, field analyses are especially attentive to the hierarchies within which data production, analysis and communication occur. And finally, social fields mark the investment of their agents in both the “rules of engagement” to operate successfully within the field and the fundamentally powerful role that such expertise plays in translating such expertise into and out of the field. These foci allow for a more comprehensive understanding of the different levels at which power manifests itself in the transformation of information into data into statistics and why the statistical field is far too important a social arena for Indigenous Peoples to dismiss for its “colonialism.”
