Nature of Data

Jenny Goldstein is an assistant professor of global development at Cornell University. Eric Nost is an assistant professor of geography, environment, and geomatics at the University of Guelph.

"This book is a necessary piece to lay the groundwork for a political ecology of data and urge more research in this direction. . . . A welcome integration of digital social sciences, political ecology, critical GIS, and science and technology studies, and as such which will be of interest to scholars across these fields, but also to conservation practitioners. This collection of essays might also be useful as a methodological text for advanced graduate students."-Anne-Lise Boyer, H-Environment "Thanks to insights from ecomedia studies, environmental humanists are increasingly studying how the environment becomes digital and the digital becomes environmental. The Nature of Data ably contributes to this research."-Heather Houser, ISLE “Data may not grow on trees, but it increasingly shapes how humans know, govern, and struggle over forests-and indeed, much of the nonhuman world. The Nature of Data captures this moment empirically while advancing political ecology conceptually. An altogether stellar volume.”-Susanne Freidberg, author of Fresh: A Perishable History “In accelerating ways, environmental politics are data politics. This powerful book shows what this looks like in different settings and at different scales, persuasively calling for a new subfield focused on the political ecology of data. Extending from prior work on the delimitations and politics of environmental science, the collection draws out what environmental data can help us see, what it cuts out, and how environmental data production itself is both polluting and weighted by commercial interests.”-Kim Fortun, author of Advocacy after Bhopal: Environmentalism, Disaster, New Global Orders “This is an original, diverse, and scintillating collection. Researchers working on political ecology of conservation and conservation social science have not taken challenges of data justice or the political economy of data production seriously enough. We must-and this book shows us how and why.”-Dan Brockington, author of Celebrity Advocacy and International Development “As environments are reverse engineered to match the spreadsheets and management platforms in which they are tallied, the environmental politics of data control, organization, and proliferation will hugely influence ecologies and politics going forward. By putting that insight front and center, Goldstein and Nost assemble a sweeping set of essays that gaze into the sometimes-disturbing future of the planet.”-Paul Robbins, author of Political Ecology: A Critical Introduction “This volume contributes to the growing discourses around political ecological work on data and the infrastructures that sustain, produce, and exchange them. The volume is startling in both its depth and breadth of engagement with timely and important topics; it marks a significant contribution to a growing field.”-Jim Thatcher, author of Thinking Big Data in Geography: New Regimes, New Research “Throughout, the reader is plunged into the complexities of digital systems, the environments they monitor and conserve, and the limits to their governance and oversight across a variety of places and scales and sovereignties. What emerges is resolutely not an endorsement of further digitalization of nature but a recognition that digitalization is perhaps yet another set of processes in which nature is actively produced.”-Matthew W. Wilson, author of New Lines: Critical GIS and the Trouble of the Map

• List of IllustrationsList of TablesIntroduction: Infrastructuring Environmental DataJenny Goldstein and Eric NostPart 1. Sensors, Servers, and Structures1. Data’s Metropolis: The Physical Footprints of Data Circulation and Modern FinanceGraham Pickren2. An Emerging Satellite Ecosystem and the Changing Political Economy of Remote SensingLuis F. Alvarez LeÓn3. Smart Earth: Environmental Governance in a Wired WorldKaren Bakker and Max Ritts4. Data, Colonialism, and the Transformation of Nature in the Pacific NorthwestAnthony Levenda and Zbigniew GrabowskiPart 2. Civic Science and Community-Driven Data5. Environmental Sensing Infrastructures and Just Good Enough DataJennifer Gabrys and Helen Pritchard6. Collaborative Modeling as Sociotechnical Data Infrastructure in Rural ZimbabweM. V. Eitzel, Jon Solera, K. B. Wilson, Abraham Mawere Ndlovu, Emmanuel Mhike Hove, Daniel Ndlovu, Abraham Changarara, Alice Ndlovu, Kleber Neves, Adnomore Chirindira, Oluwasola E. Omoju, Aaron C. Fisher, and AndrÉ Veski7. Citizen Scientists and Conservation in the Anthropocene: From Monitoring to Making CoralIrus Braverman8. Data Infrastructures, Indigenous Knowledge, and Environmental Observing in the ArcticNoor Johnson, Colleen Strawhacker, and Peter Pulsifer9. Digital Infrastructure and the Affective Nature of Value in BelizePatrick Gallagher10. Infrastructuring Environmental Data JusticeDawn Walker, Eric Nost, Aaron Lemelin, Rebecca Lave, Lindsey Dillon, and Environmental Data and Governance Initiative (EDGI)Part 3. Governing Data, Infrastructuring Land and Resources11. “A Poverty of Data”? Exporting the Digital Revolution to Farmers in the Global SouthMadeleine Fairbairn and Zenia Kish12. Illicit Digital Environments: Monitoring and Surveilling Environmental Crime in Southeast AsiaHilary O. Faxon and Jenny Goldstein13. Data Gaps: Penguin Science and Petrostate Formation in the Falkland Islands (Malvinas)James J. A. Blair14. Data Structures, Indigenous Ontologies, and Hydropower in the U.S. NorthwestCorrine Armistead15. How Forest Became Data: The Remaking of Ground-Truth in IndonesiaCindy LinConclusion: Toward a Political Ecology of DataRebecca Lave, Eric Nost, and Jenny GoldsteinSource AcknowledgmentsContributorsIndex