PC: People mentioned 1) siloes within and between the academy and other industries; 2) that finding resources and mentorship for maintaining and producing qualitative data is scarce. The...Read more
PC: Something that came up here in the “risks and benefits” discussion is how digitizing qualitative data opens up the risk of de-contextualized/flattened interpretation of data. Someone...Read more
PC: Most everyone seemed interested… One question that I thought was especially provocative (that went somewhat unaddressed) was the question of data formatting for storage. Already,...Read more
PC: Copyright as an issue came up. One major tension was around data ownership-- data localization was a key point that I picked up on. For example, if sensitive Kenyan data is stored on...Read more
PC: One dominant frame/concern is that of Western/foreign intrusion-- “data colonialism.” Though I didn’t hear that term per se, the core idea was being tossed around… Do Kenyan’s own the...Read more
PC: One person pointed out that Kenya has the infrastructural capacity (5 tier three data centers; M-Pesa is hosted here; Visa/bank transactions hosted here), but not necessarily the...Read more
PC: A key tension I see here is between open / universalized / decontextualized (typically quantitative or at the least, digital) data, and localized, particular, (often qualitative but not...Read more
PC: One take: “in digital spaces, you can be very invisible… an anonymous African researcher.” In this sense, greater connection flattens key aspects of one’s identity while boosting other...Read more
