The Urban Data Justice Case Study Collection

Cities in the global South are being “datafied”, with increasing presence of digital data of all kinds: from mobile phones, remote sensing, ground-level sensors, community mapping, etc. This has created growing interest in “data justice” in urban locations: the way in which data intersects with questions of social justice – who wins and who loses from the new digital datasets and data flows, and the relationship of data to power and inequality; particularly for those already marginalised in the physical city. This collection presents ten case studies of urban data justice; analysing from a data justice/rights or critical data perspective an initiative or phenomenon relating to growing availability and use of data in urban areas in the global South. These case studies – covering Latin America, Africa and Asia – highlight themes of increasing resistance to datafication among marginalised urban communities; of the way in which social processes and structures shape datafication and its impacts; and of the need for longer-term, qualitative actions that truly listen to the concerns and priorities of these communities. The collection also outlines a future research agenda on urban data justice in the global South.