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Short abstract:

In this presentation, I explore how we deal with uncomfortable data. I explore three stories from my elite policy research to discuss: 1) How do we establish what counts as data? and 2) What are the ethics of withholding or revealing data that make us feel uncomfortable?

Long abstract:

'Let me tell you about my boss! No, I will forward the email so you can see yourself. You can write about it! The process is corrupt, you will see in the email!'. As I completed the interview with a high-level official at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), I returned home and opened my emails. There it was. I read the email many times: it was not the data I was seeking, I am not an investigative journalist but a scholar seeking to unpack how the process of global contracting within international organizations was shaping the way education is measured globally. Eventually, I decided to never disclose its contents; but I knew the story and could not unlearn it; it became part of my understanding of the process I was studying. How do we manage the process of establishing what is data and how do we set thresholds about what counts as data and what does not?

In this presentation, I seek to explore how we deal with uncomfortable data, something I have engaged with in elite policy research. Drawing on the work by Addey and Piattoeva (2022), which explores the intimate and messy practice of methods, I explore three stories from my research journey to discuss: 1) How does the data gathering process constitute and reveal our scholarly identities?; 2) How do we establish what counts as data?; and 3) What are the ethics of withholding or revealing data that makes us feel uncomfortable?