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It doesn’t help that “data colonialism” is nonsensical as a concept but nevertheless sounds sexy and edgy. I mean, everyone (sane) is against colonialism as we
by dmvdoug 3y ago
It doesn’t help that “data colonialism” is nonsensical as a concept but nevertheless sounds sexy and edgy. I mean, everyone (sane) is against colonialism as we now understand that set of practices/beliefs. So now they’re safely and nicely positioned to write a few tens of thousands of additional words theorizing the decolonization of data and how we should have a data praxis that is consciously postcolonial. That there’s real law review publication potential!
- throwaway894345 3y agoI see know what you mean and agree (and upvoted) but man I can’t think of anything as devoid of sex appeal as these fields that hyperventilate endlessly about metaphorical “colonialism”, metaphorical “violence”, and so forth.
- dmvdoug 3y agoI mean, even somewhat more staid fields like history too comes to trendiness. For about 15 years, there was an emphasis on trying to explain basically everything through the lens of empire. And that made the concept of empire so expansive that it became empty and lost all explanatory value. But it was the hot topic that got you a book published.
- throwaway894345 3y agoYeah, I agree. But “colonialism” is not just pervasive in one field—it’s everywhere and it (like so many “activist” terms) have expanded so broadly that in many cases it doesn’t seem to mean anything apart from “really bad, but in some really vague indiscernible way”. It’s valid jargon more often than not.