Mobilizing Data for Justice: A Guide to Activism in the Digital Age

Knowledge is power and the information behind it must be liberated. Today, more than ever, data has become an important stake in social struggles and the tightening of control over it has not gone without resistance. Social activists around the world are engaging with data in novel ways, whether through investigating tax havens, tracking police misconduct, confronting employers with evidence of wage theft, mapping evictions across the cityscape, or charting the dispossession of Indigenous Peoples of their lands. Social movement groups, labour unions, and community organizations are developing and applying new kinds of technology and programming skills to collect and analyze data in ways that go beyond traditional information access. Drawing on interviews with more than fifty data activists around the world, Mobilizing Data for Justice provides the inspiration that activists need for social justice struggles today.

Chris Hurl is an associate professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Concordia University. His research examines the politics of knowledge production in public sector restructuring. He is the coauthor of The Consulting Trap and coeditor of Professional Service Firms and Politics in a Global Era and Corporatizing Canada.

Elena Rowan is a graduate student and researcher in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology and the Department of Psychology at Concordia University. Her research explores the intersections of culture and community in sociology, anthropology, and clinical psychology. Her graduate research looked at questions of community, copyright, and advocacy within libraries, published in Platform Power and Libraries. She produces the Data Justice Hub podcast.

Marius Senneville is a Montreal-based researcher trained in STS and political economy. His academic works have touched upon the AI innovation ecosystems in Montreal and Toronto and the changing forms of partnerships being developed between university and industry laboratories. He also investigated the way AI governance emerged as a strategic sector of management consulting and the different actors vying for market credibility. He currently works as an applied researcher at CÉRSÉ, where he is developing the research programs on the digital sectors and renewable energies.

Kevin Walby is a professor of Criminal Justice at the University of Winnipeg. He is coauthor of Police Funding, Dark Money, and the Greedy Institution. He is coeditor of Disarm, Defund, Dismantle and Changing of the Guards. He is the director of the Centre for Access to Information and Justice (CAIJ) and coeditor of the Journal of Prisoners on Prisons.