Contribution short abstract:

In recent years, counter-data practices have emerged as critical responses to hegemonic and undemocratic data politics. By engaging with (soft-)authoritarian datascapes, this paper aims to discuss the contentious and contradictory dynamics and practices of un/communing.

Contribution long abstract:

In recent years, counter-data practices have emerged as critical responses to the extractivist, neoliberal, and undemocratic infrastructures and politics that shape the digital / data worlds. Framed as ‘data commons’ or data activism, they are embedded in complex datascapes, where various actors make often contradictory claims about the meaning, agency, and governance of and through data. In doing so, they seek to challenge and reshape the contemporary techno-data-political shifts and disjunctures. By engaging with practices of “counter-data” (D’Ignazio 2022), this paper aims to discuss the contentious and contradictory dynamics of commoning - and uncommoning. It draws on ethnographic research conducted in Turkey, a context of authoritarian governance, and examines how activists navigate the authoritarian datascapes and propose new (un-)common grounds for contentious data politics. It asks how data shape our understandings and concepts of the politics and the political, become something invested with affective attachments, resentments and hopes and relate to the collective unpredictabilities - especially, but not exclusively, in the context of (soft-)authoritarianism. At its core, this paper discusses “what competing data politics do – and how they do” (Kopper & Knox 2024) in relation to un/communing practices – and beyond. The analysis highlights alternative forms of engagement, while addressing the evolving assemblages of the political, while addressing the collective visions and challenges of uncertain and un/common data futures.