Send message to Authors

Paper short abstract

Current data infrastructures do not facilitate secondary ethnographic analyses, as data become “decontextualized”. Via discussing cutting-edge methods for data contextualization, we provide suggestions for designing modular, open-source infrastructures that increase data sovereignty and reuse.

Paper long abstract

While Open Science narratives often frame datafication as an inevitable benefit, ethnographic data remains a site of resistance due to the risks of decontextualization (data being stripped of their methodological, circumstantial, and researcher-related context). We argue that current archival infrastructures utilize suboptimal metadata standards that strip “data beings” of their relational and situational depth.

Drawing on STS scholarship, we analyze the sociotechnical arrangements of data archives and the epistemological decisions embedded in their design. We propose a paradigm shift from the passive “reconstruction” of original research toward a sovereign “recontextualization.” By viewing data not as an extractable resource but as a co-constructed entity, we explore how alternative infrastructures – utilizing sensory probes, non-traditional research outputs (NTROs), and machine-readable semantic annotations – can return agency to the subjects and creators of data.

To transform constraining sociotechnical realities into actionable governance, we offer suggestions for open-source, modular infrastructures that prioritize user agency and reciprocal data relations. By involving a broader range of stakeholders (including artists, filmmakers, and designers), we advocate for a future where ethnographers and study participants actively shape the sociotechnical realities housing their lived experiences. Ultimately, we argue that robust data sovereignty and reuse require infrastructures that accommodate diverse epistemologies and ways of contextualization.