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Digitization as politics: Smart farming through the lens of weak and strong data
- Source :
- Journal of Rural Studies. 91:208-216
- Publication Year :
- 2022
- Publisher :
- Elsevier BV, 2022.
-
Abstract
- This paper offers an alternative approach for engaging sociologically, ontologically, and politically with digital farming platforms. A challenge faced by any approach looking to upend intellectual conventions, especially ontological ones, lies in the question of representation, namely, how do we talk about digitization in novel theoretical ways using language rooted in more than two millennia of western human-centered thought? One way to deal with this challenge, the one adopted in this paper, involves decentering familiar terms and repurposing them. Thus, rather than organizing the argument around familiar terms like small and big data, I argue instead that we organize data-assemblages according to what they do, which makes this a political ontological project. To do this, I offer the relational predicate of weak data and strong data, suggesting that they are good to think with in this regard. The argument ultimately lands at a place for analyzing these platforms that offers the potential for critique and perhaps even a degree of optimism, as I suggest a framework for normatively evaluating these practices. The paper draws upon various empirical studies of digital agriculture conducted by the author, which include interviews with farmers, farm laborers, hacktivists, investors, and engineers from numerous countries and locales.
- Subjects :
- Sociology and Political Science
business.industry
media_common.quotation_subject
05 social sciences
Geography, Planning and Development
Big data
0211 other engineering and technologies
0507 social and economic geography
021107 urban & regional planning
02 engineering and technology
Development
Predicate (grammar)
Epistemology
Through-the-lens metering
Politics
Optimism
Empirical research
Sociology
business
050703 geography
Repurposing
Digitization
media_common
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 07430167
- Volume :
- 91
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Journal of Rural Studies
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi...........678f90cda8a96492a3a61292cbafe7ea