Data Witnessing: Making Sense of Urban Air in Copenhagen, Denmark

Steffen Dalsgaard, Rasmus Tyge Haarløv, Mikkel Bille

Research output: Journal Article or Conference Article in JournalJournal articleResearchpeer-review

Abstract

Taking air pollution in Copenhagen as a case of environmental change, this article discusses the different ways that data are employed in processes of witnessing this change. We distinguish between three different modes of “data witnessing”—modest, imperial, and guerrilla—in order to clarify how different scientific, corporate, or civil society actors are engaged in producing and analyzing data about air pollution from different vantage points and with different interests. Their respective data work, as well as their joint participation in collaboration and confrontation over theinterpretation of data, isa crucial component inmaking sense of air pollution in Copenhagen, which is predominantly out of reach to the human senses. Witnessing air pollution in Copenhagen is made possible by critical data designs under circumstances where neither data, nor subjective witnessing, in itself is enough.
Original languageEnglish
JournalHAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory
Volume11
Issue number2
Pages (from-to)521-536
ISSN2049-1115
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2021

Keywords

  • data
  • environment
  • science
  • air pollution
  • Google
  • resistance

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