Big data versus thick data: is this the question? towards an ecology of digital practices
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.11606/issn.2525-3123.gis.2025.230965Keywords:
Big data, Digital anthropology, Science, technology, and society, Ecology of digital practicesAbstract
We revisit an already consolidated discussion on the conjunction between anthropological methodologies and the techno-digital world of big data, as well as other artificial intelligences that are increasingly populating our realities. A partial review sheds light on the incorrigible circularity of the recursiveness in this debate, whether focusing on the relationships between devices and users, or focusing on interpretivist epistemologies that avoid reintroduce it in a shared milieu where humans no longer dominate, or ignore a simultaneously psychic and collective individuation driven by technics. We question the dualistic exhaustion of this debate, with the help of science, technology and society studies, pointing out relational modalities through qualculation and the artifactual dimension of algorithms, up to their aesthetic emergences. Leaving the debate open, we point to a more-than-digital anthropology as a way of ecologizing digital practices with open-ended methodologies, capable of maintaining a politicization common to both data science and anthropology.
Downloads
References
ARDÉVOL, E. (2017) Big data y descripción densa. Virtualis, [S. l.], v. 7, n. 14, p. 14–38. Disponível em: https://www.revistavirtualis.mx/index.php/virtualis/article/view/186 . Acesso em: 09 oct. 2022.
BATES, David, “Penser l’automaticité au seuil du numérique ». In Stiegler B. Digital Studies. Organologie des savoirs et technologies de la connaissance, Paris: FYP/IRI, 2014, pp. 27-42.
BEIGUELMAN, Giselle, Políticas da imagem. Vigilância e resistência na dadosfera. São Paulo: Ubu, 2023.
BERQUE, Augustin, Mésologie urbaine. Paris : Terre Urbaine, 2021.
BERRY, David M., « à et le tournant de l’explicabilité”, in Stiegler, B (dir.) Le nouveau génie urbain. Paris : FYP/IRI, 2020, pp. 31-67.
BLOK, A.; FARIAS, I., Urban cosmopolitics: agencements, assemblies, atmospheres. New York, NY: Routledge, 2016.
BORNAKKE, T.; DUE, B. L. (2018). Big–Thick Blending: A method for mixing analytical insights from big and thick data sources. Big Data & Society, 5(1). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/2053951718765026
BJERRE-NIELSEN, A.; GLAVIND, K. L. (2022). Ethnographic data in the age of big data: How to compare and combine. Big Data & Society, 9(1). https://doi.org/10.1177/20539517211069893
BOELLSTORFF, Tom. Making big data, in theory. First Monday, n. 10, vol. 18, 2013. DOI: https://doi.org/10.25969/mediarep/14020.
BOUZEGHOUB, M.; MOSSERI, R. (dir.). Les big data à découvert. Paris : CNRS Éditions, 2017.
BLOK, A.; PEDERSEN, M. A. Complementary social science? Quali-quantitative experiments in a Big Data world. Big Data & Society, 1(2). 2014. https://doi.org/10.1177/2053951714543908
CALLON, M. (1987) In The Social Construction of Technological Systems. New Directions in
the Sociology and History of Technology.(Eds, Bijker, W. E., Hughes, T. P. and Pinch, T. J.) MIT press, Cambridge, MA.
CALLON, Michel; LAW, John, “On qualculation, agency, and otherness”. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 2005, volume 23, pages 717-733
CARDON, D. Regarder les données. In:Multitudes, n°49, été, 2012. pp. 138-142.
CARDON, D. (2015) À quoi rêvent les algorithmes ? Nos vies à l’heure des big data. Paris : Éditions du Seuil et La République des Idées,
COUPAYE, Ludovic, 2022. “Technology”. In DE CUNZO Roeber (eds.)) The Cambridge Handbook of material culture studies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 436-468.
CURRIE, Morgan. (2020). Data as performance – Showcasing cities through open data maps. Big Data & Society, 7(1). https://doi.org/10.1177/2053951720907953
DOUGLAS-JONES, Rachel; WALFORD, Antonia; SEAVER, Nick. (2021). Introduction: Towards an anthropology of data. Journal of the Royal Anthropology Institute. (N.S.), 27, pp. 9-25.
ESCOBAR, Arturo. 1994. Welcome to Cyberia: Notes on the Anthropology of Cyberculture. CurrentAnthropology 35/3: 211–231. https://doi.org/10.1086/204266
ESPELAND, W. N.; MITCHELL, L. S. (2008). A sociology of quantification. European Journal of Sociology 49(3): 401–436.
GEERTZ, C. (2008). Uma descrição densa: por uma teoria interpretativa da cultura. In: GEERTZ, C. A Interpretação das Culturas. Rio de Janeiro, RJ: LTC, pp. 3-25.
GROMMÉ, Francisca; RUPPERT, Evelyn; CAKICI, Baki. (2018). Data scientists: a new faction of the transnational field of statistics. In: KNOX, Hanna; NAFUS, Dawn (eds). (2018). Ethnography for a data-saturated world. Manchester University Press. pp. 33-61.
HACKING, Ian. (1986). Making up people. In: Heller TC Sosna M and Wellbery DE (eds) Reconstructing Individualism. Stanford: Stanford University Press, pp. 222–236.
HALPERN, Orit; MITCHELL, Robert, 2022. The smartness mandate. Cambridge,MA: The MIT Press.
JEGATHESAN, M.; ANDERSON, R. (2018). “Disrupting Silicon Valley’s Stories.” Anthropology News website, November 9, 2018. DOI: 10.1111/AN.1034. Available: http://www.anthropologynews.org/index.php/2018/11/09/disrupting-silicon-valleys-stories/.
KITCHIN, R. (2014). Big Data, new epistemologies and paradigm shifts. Big Data & Society, 1(1). https://doi.org/10.1177/2053951714528481
KNOX, Hanna; NAFUS, Dawn (eds). (2018). Ethnography for a data-saturated world. Manchester University Press.
KNOX, Hanna. (2018). Baseless data? Modelling, ethnography and the challenge of the anthropocene. In: KNOX, Hanna; NAFUS, Dawn (eds). (2018). Ethnography for a data-saturated world. Manchester University Press. pp. 128-150.
LATOUR, Bruno. (2017). A esperança de Pandora: Ensaios sobre a realidade dos estudos científicos. São Paulo: Editora Unesp.
LATOUR, B. (2008). Pour un dialogue entre science politique et science studies. Revue française de science politique,v. 58, p. 657-678. doi: 10.3917/rfsp.584.0657. Disponível em: https://www.cairn.info/revue-francaise-de-science-politique-2008-4-page-657.htm . Acesso em: 17/04/2024.
LATOUR B, JENSEN P, VENTURINI T, et al. (2012) ‘The whole is always smaller than its parts’ – A digital test of Gabriel Tarde’s monads. British Journal of Sociology 63(4): 590–615.
Law, J. (1992) Notes on the Theory of the Actor-Network: Ordering, Strategy and Heterogeneity, Systems Practice, 5, 379-393.
Law, J. (1999) In Actor Network Theory and After ( Eds, Law, J. and Hassard, J.) Blackwell Publishers / The Sociological Review, Oxford, pp. 1-14
LOWRIE, Ian. (2018). Becoming a real data scientist: expertise, flexibility and lifelong learning. In: KNOX, Hanna; NAFUS, Dawn (eds). (2018). Ethnography for a data-saturated world. Manchester University Press. pp. 62-81.
MILAN, S.; TRERÉ, E. (2021). Big Data From the South(s): An Analytical Matrix to Investigate Data at the Margins. In: ROHLINGER, D.; SOBIERAJ, S. (eds.). The Oxford Handbook of Sociology and Digital Media. Oxford University Press, pp. 1 - 21. Disponível online: https://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780 (Acesso em 17/07/2023).
MUNK, A. K.; OLESEN, A. G.; JACOMY, M. (2022). The Thick Machine: Anthropological AI between explanation and explication. Big Data & Society, 9(1). https://doi.org/10.1177/20539517211069891
QUESSADA, Dominique. 2023. Parasite. Essai sur le bruit digital. Paris :PUF.
PEDERSEN, M. A. (2023). Editorial introduction: Towards a machinic anthropology. Big Data & Society, 10(1). https://doi.org/10.1177/20539517231153803
PEREIRA, Rafael Damasceno Ramalho. (2021). O problema das outras mentes: uma antropologia das inteligências artificiais. Dissertação (Mestrado em Antropologia Social). Museu Nacional, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro.
ROUVROY, A.; BERNS, T. Governamentalidade algorítmica e perspectivas de emancipação: o díspar como condição de individuação pela relação?. Revista Eco-Pós, [S. l.], v. 18, n. 2, p. 36–56, 2015. Disponível em: https://revistaecopos.eco.ufrj.br/eco_pos/article/view/2662 . Acesso em: 29/07/2024.
SÁNCHEZ, M. (2014). El big data como herramienta para lae-Research en entornos infosaturados y complejos. In: ROMERO, E.; SÁNCHEZ, M. (eds.), Ciencias sociales y humanidades digitales técnicas, herramientas y experiencias de e-Research e investigación en colaboración. Tenerife: Andocopias S. L, 2014.
SANTOS, L. G. de M.; COSTA, A. B. da .; DAVID, J. da S.; PEDRO, R. M. L. R. (2023). Reconhecimento facial: tecnologia, racismo e construção de mundos possíveis. Psicologia & Sociedade, 35, e277141. https://doi.org/10.1590/1807-0310/2023v35e277141
SEAVER, N. (2017). Algorithms as culture: Some tactics for the ethnography of algorithmic systems. Big Data & Society, 4 (2).
SHAW, Ryan. (2015). Big Data and reality. Big Data & Society, 2(2). https://doi.org/10.1177/2053951715608877
VENTURINI, T.; LATOUR, B. (2010) Le tissu social: traces numériques et méthodes quali-quantitatives. Disponível em: <http://www.tommasoventurini.it/web/uploads/tommaso_venturini/LeTissuSocial.pdf>.
WANG, T. (2013). Big data needs thick data. Ethnography Matters. Disponível online: http://ethnographymatters.net/blog/2013/05/13/big-data-needs-thick-data/
ZUBOFF, S. (2019). The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: the fight for a human future at the new frontier of power. Nova York: Public Affairs.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2025 Laure Garrabé, Maria Fernanda Viana
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Authors who publish in this journal agree to the following terms:
a. All rights reserved for authors. Journal has right to first publication. Work is simultaneously licensed under Creative Commons Attribution License which permits sharing work with recognition of authorship and initial publication in this journal for non-commercial ends.
b. Authors are authorized to separately make additional contracts for non-exclusive distribution of version of work published in this journal (e. g. publish in institutional repository or as book chapter), with recognition of authorship and initial publication in this journal.
