open data doesn't empower communities

[Morgen Peers]

anticipating ChangeCamp Ottawa, July 17th

sorry to be the one who 'queers' the open data narrative... read on for explanation of my use of explicative... i may or may have not used the term correctly...

http://www.internetartizans.co.uk/open_data_does_not_empower

excerpt from article:

So either we dump data for narrative, or we 'queer' the data in the full knowledge of its limitations. I'm inspired in that by the counter-cartographies collective (3Cs) who say in their report from a Chicago community mapping workshop: 

"One big point of discussion was how to deal with the embedded biopolitics behind data sources like US Census data that we use in our maps — as 3Cs, we often talk about how we ‘queer’ data or statistics by pulling map stories out of them that they weren’t intended for. But data sources often come so tightly bound up with state politics, white supremacist racial policies, definitions of family structure, etc., that queering them might require more conscious work than we always put in".

...

Still wondering, how will open data improve, sustain, and save lives? Perhaps the need parameters of the poor and disenfranchised offer the most exciting and complex design challenges? In fact, are these folks not the most system-dependent, and if the data we derive is system-based, then the poor as client-centrality-user-node represent a complete collapsing-upon of all public data necessary for their navigation, edification, dare i say, social salvation? with the rapid availability of directions, instructions, codes, laws, perhaps timing (i.e. speed of an app) is not the design challenge it once was. maybe narrative enters back in, from spin to form. The poor as client-centrality-user-node can for design's sake be assumed as ignorant, and if that's too hard to swallow, ingest newcomer from East Africa. Without knowledge of the systems, their attempt to 'go downtown' or 'to the office place' perhaps needn't be executed so quickly. Seems in there, there's room for storytelling, to insert the codes, and laws, mores, and local quirks that make any of this viable, and indeed politically relevant, or edifying, as it might were.

"Ignorance coheres Open Data"

Morgen

[Ian Capstick]

I think this note should not be overlooked in the planning. I wish I
had more time to engage this year with ChangeCamp; but I'll admit the
focus on open data has been a hold back for me. Data won't set us
free: people will. I'm eager to see what the data folks and
programmers come up with at this session of ChangeCamp; but recognize,
like Morgan, that really it's about the human connections and enabling
the relationships to form - thus allowing solutions to human problems.
I'm not sure, to be frank, many people in Ottawa will feel "at home"
at a ChangeCamp where the technological barrier to entry is very high.

Ian Capstick: +1613.863.7746

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[citymark]

Some very interesting thoughts from both of you - thanks for sharing!

I think the ChangeCamp venue is all about having/continuing
discussions like this, and not about the "data". It is about the
human connections, and the "so what" questions. The hackfest was a
great technically-focused event to showcase what kinds of things
people can create with open data. ChangeCamp is about bringing people
together to discuss the concept of Open Data - whether the questions
raised by Morgan & Ian; accessibility issues; process; collaboration
opportunities; etc, etc.

I hope that ChangeCamp is also an opportunity to cultivate a more
connected community of interest and action around the concept of Open
Data in Ottawa so that the conversations that happen at the event
continue, and lead to actions following the event.

Mark

On Jul 6, 7:17 am, Ian Capstick <i...@mediastyle.ca> wrote:
> I think this note should not be overlooked in the planning. I wish I
> had more time to engage this year with ChangeCamp; but I'll admit the
> focus on open data has been a hold back for me. Data won't set us
> free: people will. I'm eager to see what the data folks and
> programmers come up with at this session of ChangeCamp; but recognize,
> like Morgan, that really it's about the human connections and enabling
> the relationships to form - thus allowing solutions to human problems.
> I'm not sure, to be frank, many people in Ottawa will feel "at home"
> at a ChangeCamp where the technological barrier to entry is very high.
>
> Ian Capstick: +1613.863.7746
>

[David Janes]

The author of the article has exactly the same attitude that one particular TO city hall-type had on launch day last year: a fear that Joe Nobody might draw their own conclusions without the help of a benevolent professional curating and interpreting the data. Knowledge that a school district is awful or a neighborhood has an unusually high crime rate is best kept in the hands of the disinterested few, otherwise people might actually start wondering why it is so and maybe even take an unwise action, like moving, or putting their kids in a different school, or locking their doors [1]. And only the rich and the bourgeoisie own computers anyway.

I can't help think that OpenData "is what it is". If "saving lives" is the metric, one can always volunteer somewhere or take a St. John Ambulance course.

[1]http://www.cbc.ca/news/story/1998/07/03/doe980703e.html

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