Moving beyond data literacy,
with its emphasis on thinking within the boundaries of the world as given, data fluencies start by realizing that the world
our technologies anticipate is not the only possibility, and instead encourage us to interject and resist the tacit and explicit
norms embedded in data work. They embrace creative and imaginative capabilities as a means to grapple with the complexities
of data systems and to rewrite the scripts we’re given.
What is the Data Fluencies project?
Since 2022,
the Digital Democracies Institute (DDI) based at Simon Fraser University (SFU) has spearheaded the Mellon Foundation-funded
Data Fluencies research project (
https://digitaldemocracies.org/data-fluencies/)
under the leadership of Professor Wendy Chun. Project contributors consist of researchers from across the globe who tackle
social justice issues pertaining to data including technology developers, media scholars, theatre producers, curators, artists
and designers. The project’s aim is to develop tools to identify and resist dangers posed by social media and predatory algorithms
and to advance innovative qualitative-quantitative methods for addressing pressing data justice challenges like online polarization,
abusive language, discriminatory algorithms, and mis- and disinformation.
