<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<rdf:RDF xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:syn="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/syndication/" xmlns="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/">




    



<channel rdf:about="https://cis-india.org/search_rss">
  <title>Centre for Internet and Society</title>
  <link>https://cis-india.org</link>
  
  <description>
    
            These are the search results for the query, showing results 21 to 26.
        
  </description>
  
  
  
  
  <image rdf:resource="https://cis-india.org/logo.png"/>

  <items>
    <rdf:Seq>
        
            <rdf:li rdf:resource="https://cis-india.org/raw/fov-podcast-data-people-and-smart-cities"/>
        
        
            <rdf:li rdf:resource="https://cis-india.org/raw/studying-the-emerging-database-state-in-india-accepted-abstract"/>
        
        
            <rdf:li rdf:resource="https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/open-data-intermediaries-in-developing-countries"/>
        
        
            <rdf:li rdf:resource="https://cis-india.org/raw/smart-cities-and-the-primitive-accumulation-of-data-abstract"/>
        
        
            <rdf:li rdf:resource="https://cis-india.org/raw/whose-open-data-community-is-it-abstract"/>
        
        
            <rdf:li rdf:resource="https://cis-india.org/raw/reclaiming-the-right-to-privacy-researching-the-intersection-of-privacy-and-gender"/>
        
    </rdf:Seq>
  </items>

</channel>


    <item rdf:about="https://cis-india.org/raw/fov-podcast-data-people-and-smart-cities">
    <title>FOV Podcast - Data, People, and Smart Cities</title>
    <link>https://cis-india.org/raw/fov-podcast-data-people-and-smart-cities</link>
    <description>
        &lt;b&gt;For the second part of the Smart City podcast series, Sruthi Krishnan and Harsha K from Fields of View spoke with Sumandro Chattapadhyay on data, people, and smart cities. Here is the podcast. We are grateful to Fields of View for producing and sharing this recording.&lt;/b&gt;
        
&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h2&gt;Podcast&lt;/h2&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;object data="http://flash-mp3-player.net/medias/player_mp3_maxi.swf" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" height="32" width="440"&gt;
&lt;param name="movie" value="http://flash-mp3-player.net/medias/player_mp3_maxi.swf"&gt;
&lt;param name="bgcolor" value="#ffffff"&gt;
&lt;param name="FlashVars" value="mp3=http://blog.fieldsofview.in/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/FoV-Podcast-Sumandro.mp3&amp;amp;width=400&amp;amp;showvolume=1"&gt;
&lt;/object&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;If the audio player is not visible above, please &lt;a href="http://blog.fieldsofview.in/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/FoV-Podcast-Sumandro.mp3"&gt;download&lt;/a&gt; the MP3 file.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Source:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;a href="http://blog.fieldsofview.in/2015/11/1126/" target="_blank"&gt;http://blog.fieldsofview.in/2015/11/1126/&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Smart Cities podcast series:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;a href="http://blog.fieldsofview.in/category/smartcitiespodcast/" target="_blank"&gt;http://blog.fieldsofview.in/category/smartcitiespodcast/&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h2&gt;Fields of View&lt;/h2&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Issues in urban systems and public safety and security are often referred to as ‘wicked problems’. Such problems require a diverse set of actors to come together and collaborate. We need government, academia, industry, and civil society to question, debate, discuss, and ideate together. In short, we need a dialogue in diversity. Our goal at Fields of View is to design spaces to enable such dialogues using games and simulations – tools based on research at the intersection of social sciences, art, and technology.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Website:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;a href="http://fieldsofview.in/" target="_blank"&gt;http://fieldsofview.in/&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Twitter:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;a href="https://twitter.com/fovlabs" target="_blank"&gt;@fovlabs&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;

        &lt;p&gt;
        For more details visit &lt;a href='https://cis-india.org/raw/fov-podcast-data-people-and-smart-cities'&gt;https://cis-india.org/raw/fov-podcast-data-people-and-smart-cities&lt;/a&gt;
        &lt;/p&gt;
    </description>
    <dc:publisher>No publisher</dc:publisher>
    <dc:creator>sumandro</dc:creator>
    <dc:rights></dc:rights>

    
        <dc:subject>Smart Cities</dc:subject>
    
    
        <dc:subject>Researchers at Work</dc:subject>
    
    
        <dc:subject>Data Systems</dc:subject>
    

   <dc:date>2015-12-02T07:54:26Z</dc:date>
   <dc:type>Blog Entry</dc:type>
   </item>


    <item rdf:about="https://cis-india.org/raw/studying-the-emerging-database-state-in-india-accepted-abstract">
    <title>Studying the Emerging Database State in India: Notes for Critical Data Studies (Accepted Abstract)</title>
    <link>https://cis-india.org/raw/studying-the-emerging-database-state-in-india-accepted-abstract</link>
    <description>
        &lt;b&gt;"Critical Data Studies (CDS) is a growing field of research that focuses on the unique theoretical, ethical, and epistemological challenges posed by 'Big Data.' Rather than treat Big Data as a scientifically empirical, and therefore largely neutral phenomena, CDS advocates the view that data should be seen as always-already constituted within wider data assemblages." The Big Data and Society journal has provisionally accepted a paper abstract of mine for its upcoming special issue on Critical Data Studies.&lt;/b&gt;
        
&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h2&gt;Introduction&lt;/h2&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Through the last decade, the Government of India has given shape to an digital identification infrastructure, developed and operated by the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI). The infrastructure combines the task of assigning unique identification numbers, called Aadhaar numbers, to individuals submitting their biometric and demographic details, and the task of authenticating their identity when provided with an Aadhaar number and  associated data (biometric data, One Time Pin sent to the pre-declared mobile number, etc.). The aim of UIDAI is to provide universal authentication-as-a-service for all residents of India who approach any public or private agencies for any kind of service or transaction. Simultaneously, the Aadhaar numbers will function as unique identifiers for joining up databases of different government agencies, and hence allow the Indian government to undertake big data analytics at a governmental scale, and not only at a departmental one.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;In this paper, I am primarily motivated by the challenge of finding points and objects to enter into a critical study of such an in-progress data infrastructure. As I proceed with an understanding that data is produced within its specific social and material context, the question then is to read through the data to reflect on its possible social and material context. This is complicated when approaching a big data infrastructure that is meant to produce data for explicitly intra-governmental consumption and circulation. The problem then is not one of reading through available big data, but one of reading through the assemblage and imaginaries of big data to reflect on the kind of data it will give rise to, and thus on the politics of the data assemblage and the database state it enables.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h2&gt;Logic of the Database State&lt;/h2&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Application of data to inform governmental acts have taken place at least since government has been understood as responsible for the welfare of the population and the territory. The measurement of the population and the territory – the number of people, their demographic features, amounts and locations of natural resources, and so on – have always been integral to the functioning of the modern nation-state. Database state is used in this paper to identify a particular mode of mobilisation of data within governmental acts, which is fundamentally shaped by the possibilities of big data extraction, appropriation, and analytics pioneered by a range of companies since late 1990s. The reason for not using big data state but database dtate is that big data refers to a body of technologies emerging in response to  a set of data management and analysis challenges situated in a certain moment of development of information technologies, whereas database refers to a symbolic form (Manovich 1999): a form in which not only the population is made visible to the government (as a collection of visual, textual, numeric, and other forms of records), but also how the acts of government are made visible to the population (as a collection of performance indicators, budget allocation and utilisation tables, and other data visualised through dashboards, analog and digital).&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The data production and management logic of this database state is specifically inspired by the notion of platform introduced by the so-called Web 2.0 companies: providing a common service layer upon which various other applications may also run, but under specific arrangements (including distribution of generated user data) with the original common layer provider. Data assemblages of the database state are expected to enable the government to function as a platform, as an intensely data-driven layer that widely gathers data about population individuals and feeds it back selectively to various providers of public and private services. This transforms the data assemblage from one vertical of governmental activities to a horizontal critical infrastructure for modularisation of governmental activities.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h2&gt;Studying the Emerging Database State in India&lt;/h2&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Government of India is presently debating the legal and technical validity of the digital identity infrastructure programme in the Supreme Court, while simultaneously carrying out the enrollment drive for the same, linking up assignment  of unique identity numbers with a national drive for population registration, and rolling out citizen-facing services and applications that implement the Aadhaar number as a necessary key to access them. With the enrollment process going on and the integration with various governmental processes (termed seeding by Aadhaar policy literature) just beginning, I enter this study through two key sets of objects reflecting the imaginaries and the technical specifications of the emerging database state in India. The first entry point is through the various official documents of vision, intentions, plans, and reconsiderations, and the second entry point is through the Application Programming Interface (API) documentations published by UIDAI to specify how its identity authentication platform will collaborate with various public and private services.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The first section of the paper provides a brief survey of pre-UIDAI attempts by the Government of India to deploy unique identification numbers and Smart Cards for specific population groups, so as to understand the initial conceptualisation of this data assemblage of a digital identification platform. The second section foregrounds how this platform undertakes a transformation of the components and relations of the pre-existing data assemblage of the Government of India, as articulated in various official documents of promised utility and proposed collaborations. The third section studies the API documentations to track how such imaginaries are materially interpreted and operationalised through the design of protocols of data interactions with various public and private agencies offering services utilising the identity authentication platform.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h2&gt;Notes for Critical Data Studies&lt;/h2&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Expanding the early agenda note on Critical Data Studies by Craig Dalton and Jim Thatcher (2014), Rob Kitchin and Tracey P. Lauriault have taken steps towards emphasising the responsibility of this nebulous research strategy to chart and unpack the data assemblages (2014). This is exactly what I propose to do in this paper. While Kitchin and Lauriault provide a detailed list of the components of the apparatus of a data assemblage (2014: 7), I find the concepts of infrastructural components and infrastructural relations very useful in thinking through the emerging infrastructure of authentication. Thus, my approach to these tasks of charting and unpacking is focused on the infrastructural relations that the digital identity infrastructure re-configures, instead of the infrastructural components it mobilises (Bowker et al 2010). This tactical choice of focusing on the infrastructural relations is also necessitated by the practical difficulty in having comprehensive access to the individual components of the data assemblage concerned. Addressing questions of causality and quality becomes difficult when studying the assemblage sans the produced data, and rigorously analysing concerns of security and uncertainty pre-requires an actually existing data assemblage, with a public interface to investigating its leakages, breakages, and internal functioning. In the absence of such points of entry into the data assemblage, which I fear may not be an exceptional case, I attempt an inverted reading. Turning the data infrastructure inside out, in this paper I describe how the digital identity platform is critically reshaping the basis of governmental acts in India, through a specific model of production, extraction and application of big data.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h2&gt;Bibliography&lt;/h2&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Bowker, Geoffrey C., Karen Baker, Florence Millerand, &amp;amp; David Ribes. 2010. Toward Information Infrastructure Studies: Ways of Knowing in a Networked Environment. Jeremy Hunsinger, Lisbeth Klastrup, &amp;amp; Matthew Allen (Eds.) International Handbook of 	Internet Research. Springer Dordrecht Heidelberg London New York. Pp. 97-117.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Dalton, Craig, &amp;amp; Jim Thatcher. 2014. What does a Critical Data Studies Look Like, and Why do We Care? Seven Points for a Critical Approach to ‘Big Data.’ Society and Space. May 19. Accessed on July 08, 2015, from &lt;a href="http://societyandspace.com/material/commentaries/craig-dalton-and-jim-thatcher-what-does-a-critical-data-studies-look-like-and-why-do-we-care-seven-points-for-a-critical-approach-to-big-data/" target="_blank"&gt;http://societyandspace.com/material/commentaries/craig-dalton-and-jim-thatcher-what-does-a-critical-data-studies-look-like-and-why-do-we-care-seven-points-for-a-critical-approach-to-big-data/&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Kitchin, Rob, &amp;amp; Tracey P. Lauriault. 2014. Towards Critical Data Studies: Charting and Unpacking Data Assemblages and their Work. The Programmable City Working Paper 2. July 29. National University of Ireland Maynooth, Ireland. Accessed on July 08, 2015 from &lt;a href="http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2474112" target="_blank"&gt;http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2474112&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Manovich, Lev. 1999. Database as Symbolic Form. Convergence. Volume 5, Number 2. Pp. 80-99.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Note: Call for Papers for the special issue can found here: &lt;a href="http://bigdatasoc.blogspot.in/2015/06/call-for-proposals-special-theme-on.html" target="_blank"&gt;http://bigdatasoc.blogspot.in/2015/06/call-for-proposals-special-theme-on.html&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;

        &lt;p&gt;
        For more details visit &lt;a href='https://cis-india.org/raw/studying-the-emerging-database-state-in-india-accepted-abstract'&gt;https://cis-india.org/raw/studying-the-emerging-database-state-in-india-accepted-abstract&lt;/a&gt;
        &lt;/p&gt;
    </description>
    <dc:publisher>No publisher</dc:publisher>
    <dc:creator>sumandro</dc:creator>
    <dc:rights></dc:rights>

    
        <dc:subject>Big Data</dc:subject>
    
    
        <dc:subject>Data Systems</dc:subject>
    
    
        <dc:subject>Research</dc:subject>
    
    
        <dc:subject>Featured</dc:subject>
    
    
        <dc:subject>Aadhaar</dc:subject>
    
    
        <dc:subject>Researchers at Work</dc:subject>
    
    
        <dc:subject>E-Governance</dc:subject>
    

   <dc:date>2015-11-13T05:54:53Z</dc:date>
   <dc:type>Blog Entry</dc:type>
   </item>


    <item rdf:about="https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/open-data-intermediaries-in-developing-countries">
    <title>Open Data Intermediaries in Developing Countries - A Synthesis Report</title>
    <link>https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/open-data-intermediaries-in-developing-countries</link>
    <description>
        &lt;b&gt;The roles of intermediaries in open data is insufficiently explored; open data intermediaries are often presented as
single and simple linkages between open data supply and use. This synthesis research paper offers a more
socially nuanced approach to open data intermediaries using the theoretical framework of Bourdieu’s social model, in particular, his concept of species of capital as informing social interaction...  Because no single
intermediary necessarily has all the capital available to link effectively to all sources of power in a field, multiple
intermediaries with complementary configurations of capital are more likely to connect between power
nexuses. This study concludes that consideration needs to be given to the presence of multiple intermediaries in an open data ecosystem, each of whom may possess different forms of capital to enable the use and unlock the
potential impact of open data.&lt;/b&gt;
        
&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;This synthesis report is prepared by François van Schalkwyk, Michael Caňares, Sumandro Chattapadhyay, and Alexander Andrason, based on the analysis of a sample of cases from the &lt;a href="http://opendataresearch.org/" target="_blank"&gt;Exploring the Emerging Impacts of Open Data in Developing Countries&lt;/a&gt; (ODDC) research network managed by the World Wide Web Foundation and supported by the International Development Research Centre, Canada. Data on intermediaries were extracted from the ODDC reports according to a working definition of an open data intermediary presented in this paper, and with a focus on how intermediaries link actors in an open data supply chain.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Below is an excerpt from the report. The full report can be accessed from &lt;a href="http://figshare.com/articles/Open_Data_Intermediaries_in_Developing_Countries/1449222" target="_blank"&gt;Figshare&lt;/a&gt; or from &lt;a href="https://github.com/ajantriks/docs/raw/master/ODDC_2_Open_Data_Intermediaries_15_June_2015_FINAL.pdf" target="_blank"&gt;Github&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h2&gt;Implications for Policy&lt;/h2&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The practical implications of the findings presented here are not insignificant. Given that most of the open data intermediaries in this study were found to rely on donor in order to execute their open data-related social benefit activities, it is perhaps funders who should take heed of the findings presented here when making grants. For example, where a single agency is awarded a funding grant to improve the lives of citizens using open data, questions need to be asked whether the grantee possesses all the types of capital required not only to re-use open data but to connect open data to specific user groups in order to
ensure the use and impact of open data. Questions to be asked of grantees could include: “Who are the specific user groups or communities that you expect to use the data, information or product you are making available?”; “Does your organisation have existing links to these user groups or communities?”; and “What types of channels are in place for you to communicate with these user groups or communities?”. Alternatively donor funders may rethink awarding funding to single agencies in favour of funding partnerships or collaborations in which there is a greater spread of types of capital across multiple actors thereby
increasing the likelihood of effectively linking the supply and use of open data. Such an approach would be more in line with an ecosystems approach to multiple actors being participants in the data supply and (re)use of open data, and the importance of keystone species and positive feedback loops to ensure a healthy system.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;In addition to highlighting the importance of social capital in developing-country innovations systems, Intarakummerd and Chaoroenporn (2013) point to the importance of government initiating and coordinating the activities of both public and private intermediaries. Our findings indicate that should governments adopt such a co-ordinating role in the case of open data intermediaries, they would do well to engage with a broad spectrum of intermediaries, and not simply focus on intermediaries who possess only the technical capital required to interpret and repackage open government data. To be sure, this will be a challenging role for government to assume as conflicting vested interests are likely to surface. Although speculative, it is possible that such a coordinating role is likely to work best when there is a strong pact between all actors involved. And this, in turn, will require a common vision of the value and benefits of open data – something that cannot be taken for granted.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Should there be agreement on the value and benefits of open data, our findings show that most of the
intermediaries in our study are NGOs that rely on donor funding. This should raise serious questions about the sustainability of open data initiatives that are civic-minded in conjunction with questions about what incentives other than that of donor funding could ensure the supply and use of open data beyond project funding. Funders and supporters of open data initiatives may have to think not only about the value and benefits or funding projects, but of the sustainability and the impacts of the products produced by the projects they fund.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;

        &lt;p&gt;
        For more details visit &lt;a href='https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/open-data-intermediaries-in-developing-countries'&gt;https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/open-data-intermediaries-in-developing-countries&lt;/a&gt;
        &lt;/p&gt;
    </description>
    <dc:publisher>No publisher</dc:publisher>
    <dc:creator>sumandro</dc:creator>
    <dc:rights></dc:rights>

    
        <dc:subject>Data Systems</dc:subject>
    
    
        <dc:subject>Open Data</dc:subject>
    
    
        <dc:subject>Featured</dc:subject>
    
    
        <dc:subject>Open Data Community</dc:subject>
    
    
        <dc:subject>Openness</dc:subject>
    

   <dc:date>2015-06-16T09:40:58Z</dc:date>
   <dc:type>Blog Entry</dc:type>
   </item>


    <item rdf:about="https://cis-india.org/raw/smart-cities-and-the-primitive-accumulation-of-data-abstract">
    <title>Mathematisation of the Urban and not Urbanisation of Mathematics: Smart Cities and the Primitive Accumulation of Data - Accepted Abstract</title>
    <link>https://cis-india.org/raw/smart-cities-and-the-primitive-accumulation-of-data-abstract</link>
    <description>
        &lt;b&gt;"Many accounts of smart cities recognise the historical coincidence of cybernetic control and neoliberal capital. Even where it is machines which process the vast amounts of data produced by the city so much so that the ruling and managerial classes disappear from view, it is usually the logic of capital that steers the flows of data, people and things. Yet what other futures of the city may be possible within the smart city, what collective intelligence may it bring forth?" The Fibreculture Journal has accepted an abstract of mine for its upcoming issue on 'Computing the City.'&lt;/b&gt;
        
&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Speaking to Geert Lovink, Wolfgang Ernst explains that '[t]he coupling of machine and mathematics that enables computers occurs as a mathematization of machine, not as machinization of mathematics' &lt;strong&gt;[1]&lt;/strong&gt;. In this paper, I propose that the idea of smart cities be understood not as 'urbanisation of mathematics' – as often described by industry documents, design fictions, and academic analyses – but as 'mathematisation of the urban.' By the notion of 'urbanisation of mathematics,' I indicate at those reports that conceptualise smart cities as data analytics, or civic mathematics, at an urban scale. I explain how this notion is shared by design visions of actors from the networking industry, such as IBM and Cisco, emerging academic practices in urban science and informatics, and calls for urbanising the technologies of regulation and governance, in the sense of making these technologies directly and bi-directionally interact with the urban citizens &lt;strong&gt;[2]&lt;/strong&gt;. Conversely, the 'mathematisation of the urban' perspective foregrounds a specific transformation at hand in the production of urban space itself, which I argue is what is captured in the idea of smart cities. This transformation is not a new thing, and has been heralded by the coming of coded infrastructures and the transduction of urban space through them &lt;strong&gt;[3]&lt;/strong&gt;. The process of 'mathematisation of the urban' refers to a fundamental reorganisation of the urban itself so as to make aspects of it available to mathematical manipulation, most often undertaken by software systems. This mathematisation takes place through the rebuilding of urban infrastructures so as to facilitate sensing and recording of parts of urban lives and processes as mathematical data, and the embedding of coded assemblages that can communicate and act upon the analysis of such data, and also through re-building the relations of property around this newly-obtained and continuously-generated resource of data about the urban.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I propose in this paper that production, circulation, and ownership of data must be considered as a central problematique in the discussions of smart cities. As writings on smart cities have often focused on the dyadic relationships between code and space on one hand, and co-evolution (and splintering) of networked infrastructures and the urban form, the figure of data has remained implicit yet subdued as as an entry point to study the idea of smart cities. Even for commentators who do focus on the implications of data, the category is often treated as a feature or a capacity of new technological assemblages. Instead, I argue in this paper that it is the concerns of production, circulation, and ownership of data that drive the conceptualisation and actual material forms of the visions of smart cities. These technological assemblages, materialisation of which constitute such visions, are implementations of exclusive data collection operations targeting various portions of urban lives and processes. The imagination of 'city 2.0' takes a particularly insightful colour when thought of as an analogy to the 'web 2.0' model of capture and monetisation of user behaviour data. Further, I employ the Marxian theory of 'primitive accumulation' to describe how the material infrastructures of networked sensors and embedded data capture systems create enclosed spaces for conversion of collectively-held-information into data-as-exchangable-and-interoperable-value, through which disparate and distributed knowledge and experiences of the urban is transformed into urban data, which can be centralised and queried, and hence value can be extracted from it.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h3&gt;Footnotes&lt;/h3&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;[1]&lt;/strong&gt; Lovink, Geert. 2013. Interview with German Media Archeologist Wolfgang Ernst. Nettime-l. February 26. Accessed on April 20, 2015, from &lt;a href="http://www.nettime.org/Lists-Archives/nettime-l-0302/msg00132.html" target="_blank"&gt;http://www.nettime.org/Lists-Archives/nettime-l-0302/msg00132.html&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;[2]&lt;/strong&gt; Sassen, Saskia. 2012. Urbanising Technology. LSE Cities. December. Accessed on April 20, 2015, from &lt;a href="http://lsecities.net/media/objects/articles/urbanising-technology/en-gb/" target="_blank"&gt;http://lsecities.net/media/objects/articles/urbanising-technology/en-gb/&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;[3]&lt;/strong&gt; Dodge, Martin, and Rob Kitchin. 2005. Code and the Transduction of Space. Annals of the Association of American Geographers. 95: 01. Pp. 162-180.&lt;/p&gt;

        &lt;p&gt;
        For more details visit &lt;a href='https://cis-india.org/raw/smart-cities-and-the-primitive-accumulation-of-data-abstract'&gt;https://cis-india.org/raw/smart-cities-and-the-primitive-accumulation-of-data-abstract&lt;/a&gt;
        &lt;/p&gt;
    </description>
    <dc:publisher>No publisher</dc:publisher>
    <dc:creator>sumandro</dc:creator>
    <dc:rights></dc:rights>

    
        <dc:subject>Data Systems</dc:subject>
    
    
        <dc:subject>Space</dc:subject>
    
    
        <dc:subject>Research</dc:subject>
    
    
        <dc:subject>Smart Cities</dc:subject>
    
    
        <dc:subject>Researchers at Work</dc:subject>
    

   <dc:date>2015-11-13T05:47:13Z</dc:date>
   <dc:type>Blog Entry</dc:type>
   </item>


    <item rdf:about="https://cis-india.org/raw/whose-open-data-community-is-it-abstract">
    <title>Whose Open Data Community is it? - Accepted Abstract</title>
    <link>https://cis-india.org/raw/whose-open-data-community-is-it-abstract</link>
    <description>
        &lt;b&gt;My paper titled 'Whose Open Data Community is it? Reflections on the Open Data Ecosystem in India' has been accepted for presentation at the Open Data Research Symposium to be held during the 3rd International Open Data Conference &lt;http://opendatacon.org/&gt; in Ottawa, Canada, on May 28-29 2015. The final paper will be shared by second week of May. Here is the accepted abstract.&lt;/b&gt;
        
&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h3&gt;Where are the NGOs?&lt;/h3&gt;
&lt;p&gt;On February 04, 2013, several members of the DataMeet group &amp;lt;&lt;a href="http://datameet.org/" target="_blank"&gt;http://datameet.org/&lt;/a&gt;&amp;gt; were invited by the National Data Sharing and Accessibility Policy ­Project Management Unit (NDSAP­-PMU) – the nodal agency responsible for developing, implementing, and managing the Open Government Data Platform of India &amp;lt;&lt;a href="https://data.gov.in/" target="_blank"&gt;https://data.gov.in/&lt;/a&gt;&amp;gt; – to share thoughts on the status of the implementation of the National Data Sharing and Accessibility Policy (NDSAP), the open data policy of India, and discuss potentials for collaboration. A key proposal made by the NDSAP­PMU team regarding how DataMeet can contribute to the implementation process, involved DataMeet mobilising the developer community connected to the group to build applications that use the opened up data and demonstrate the value of open government data to drive greater contribution by government agencies and greater utilisation by citizen groups. For DataMeet, a network of open data users and advocates, this invitation to collaborate sets up a slightly different problematic than that in most of the cases of free and open source software development project. The task here is to develop projects that use already available data, which may not offer significantly return to investment at present, but will accellerate the process of opening up of more valuable government data.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;However, building an application that effectively utilise government data to foreground a compelling argument or story requires more than a team of developers – it also require domain experts with a deep sense of the context from which the data is emanating. With a vibrant scene of non­governmental organisations involved in monitoring, analysis, and implementation of developmental projects, many of such domain experts in India are located within such organisations, with some being in the academic institutes too. Reporting from an open data community meeting organised by the World Bank at Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, on December 10, 2014, Isha Parihar asks: “Where are the NGOs?” She points out that “[t]he discussions around open data [in India] also highlight the absence of non­profit organisations among the technology­focused groups, entrepreneurs, and businesses &lt;strong&gt;[1]&lt;/strong&gt;.” This observation is especially critical as the meeting was organsied by World Bank not only to gather public responses to be presented to Government of India, but also to take stock of the open data community in India. The absence of NGOs, although, does not indicate at the lack of interest of the non­governmental research and advocacy organisations in India to work with government data. Such organisations, on the contrary, have a long history of accessing, using, sharing, and communicating government data obtained through both proactive and reactive disclosure mechanism. While surveying such practices in a recent report, Sumandro Chattapadhyay argues &lt;strong&gt;[2]&lt;/strong&gt; that the lack of a common understanding of the open data community in India emerges from both the lack of an established forum where commercial and non­-commercial re­users of data discuss and articulate their requirements and demands, and the 
existence of an established range of actors accessing, using, and re­sharing government data for commercial and non­commercial purposes who are still uncertain regarding how open government data will exactly transform and augment their existing practices.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h3&gt;Whose Open Data Community is it?&lt;/h3&gt;
&lt;p&gt;In the context of the emerging open data ecosystem in India, thus, the notion of the open data community comes forward as both the problem – in terms of the community not yet being there to effectively take forward the open data agenda – and the solution – as the component of the ecosystem that can successfully bridge gaps between interests and capacities of various stakeholders. Given the gap and the stakeholder concerned, the open data community is expected to perform various critical functions. This paper tracks these conceptualisations of open data community in India. Based upon conversations with fourteen organisations working across four cities in India, the question of 'whose open data community is it' is explored in this paper following three pathways – (1) by documenting how the understanding of the open data community, and the location of the organisation concerned in reference to that, changes across these organisations, (2) by describing how the idea of who all are included in the open data community in India changes across these organisations, and (3) by identifying how different organisations formulate the intended audiences of the open data community in India. In doing so, I argue that a range of critical challenges being experienced by the open data ecosystem in India often gets articulated as things that can be resolved by a more active and effective open data community. This distorts the distribution of responsbilities across various kinds of stakeholders for contributing to the open data ecosystem. In conclusion, I note the need to stop using open data community as a solution-­for­-all­-open­-data­-evils, and for a pragmatic approach to understand the kinds of open data challenges it can address, and those that it cannot.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h3&gt;Endnotes&lt;/h3&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;[1]&lt;/strong&gt; Parihar, Isha. 2015. On the Road to Open Data: Glimpses of the Discourse in India. Akvo. January 14. Accessed on March 02, 2015, from &lt;a href="http://akvo.org/blog/on-the-road-to-open-data-glimpses-of-the-discourse-in-india/" target="_blank"&gt;http://akvo.org/blog/on-the-road-to-open-data-glimpses-of-the-discourse-in-india/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;[2]&lt;/strong&gt; Chattapadhyay, Sumandro. 2014. Opening Government Data through Mediation: Exploring Roles, Practices and Strategies of (Potential) Data Intermediary Organisations in India. Accessed on March 02, 2015, from &lt;a href="http://ajantriks.github.io/oddc/report/sumandro_oddc_project_report.pdf" target="_blank"&gt;http://ajantriks.github.io/oddc/report/sumandro_oddc_project_report.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

        &lt;p&gt;
        For more details visit &lt;a href='https://cis-india.org/raw/whose-open-data-community-is-it-abstract'&gt;https://cis-india.org/raw/whose-open-data-community-is-it-abstract&lt;/a&gt;
        &lt;/p&gt;
    </description>
    <dc:publisher>No publisher</dc:publisher>
    <dc:creator>sumandro</dc:creator>
    <dc:rights></dc:rights>

    
        <dc:subject>Data Systems</dc:subject>
    
    
        <dc:subject>Open Data</dc:subject>
    
    
        <dc:subject>Research</dc:subject>
    
    
        <dc:subject>Open Data Community</dc:subject>
    
    
        <dc:subject>Researchers at Work</dc:subject>
    

   <dc:date>2015-11-13T05:41:15Z</dc:date>
   <dc:type>Blog Entry</dc:type>
   </item>


    <item rdf:about="https://cis-india.org/raw/reclaiming-the-right-to-privacy-researching-the-intersection-of-privacy-and-gender">
    <title>Reclaiming the right to privacy: Researching the intersection of privacy and gender</title>
    <link>https://cis-india.org/raw/reclaiming-the-right-to-privacy-researching-the-intersection-of-privacy-and-gender</link>
    <description>
        &lt;b&gt;It was our privilege to be supported by Privacy International, UK, during 2019-2020, to undertake a research project focusing on reproductive health and data surveillance, and to engage on related topics with national civil society groups. Our partner organisations who led some of the research as part of this project are grassroots actors - Domestic Workers Rights Union, Migrant Workers Solidarity Network, Parichiti, Samabhabona, Rainbow Manipur, and Right to Food Campaign. Here we are compiling the various works supported by this project co-led by Ambika Tandon, Aayush Rathi, and Sumandro Chattapadhyay at the Centre for Internet and Society, India.&lt;/b&gt;
        
&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Previous research conducted by CIS on the subject of sexual and reproductive health (SRH) services in India observes that there is a complex web of surveillance, or ‘dataveillance’, around each patient as they avail of SRH services from the state. &lt;strong&gt;[1]&lt;/strong&gt; In this project on ‘researching the intersection of privacy and gender’, we aimed to map the ecosystem of surveillance around SRH services as their provision becomes increasingly ‘data-driven’, and explore its implications for patients and beneficiaries.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Through this project, we were interested in documenting the roles played by both the public and the private sector actors in this ecosystem of health surveillance. We understand the role of private sector actors as central to state provision of sexual and reproductive health services, especially through the institutionalisation of data-driven health insurance models, as well as through extensive privatisation of public health services.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;We supported studies on a range of topics that constitute the experience of sexual and gender minorities and women when accessing public health and welfare systems, including the treatment of trans persons by law and welfare systems in India, access to abortion and maternity benefits for low income women, access to ART treatments by PLHIV, and so on.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;We found that many respondents had no information about welfare schemes despite being eligible, while many others were excluded from them because they did not have Aadhaar cards and other ID documents, or because of errors and inconsistencies in the same. Direct benefit transfer schemes also required mobile phone linkage and active Aadhaar-seeded bank accounts, which added another layer of requirements and excluded vulnerable populations. We also found that respondents had very little information about the storage and sharing of their data, which raises questions about the possibility of implementing complex consent architectures for digitised health data as imagined by the Indian government through policies such as the Non Personal Data Governance Framework. We found that populations that carry stigma are most likely to be excluded from health and welfare access as a result of data collection, including trans groups, PLHIV, and single women or adolescent girls seeking abortion.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Please find below the various works undertaken as part of this project. We hope these works will be useful for civil society organisations, grassroots organisations, and reproductive rights organisations.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;hr /&gt;
&lt;h3&gt;Article&lt;/h3&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Raina Roy. (July 18, 2020). Coronavirus: Kolkata’s trans community has been locked out of healthcare and livelihood. Scroll.in. &lt;a href="https://scroll.in/article/968182/coronavirus-kolkatas-trans-community-has-been-locked-out-of-healthcare-and-livelihood" target="_blank"&gt;https://scroll.in/article/968182/coronavirus-kolkatas-trans-community-has-been-locked-out-of-healthcare-and-livelihood&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Rosamma Thomas. (November 02, 2020). Citizen data and freedom: The fears of people living with HIV in India. GenderIT. &lt;a href="https://www.genderit.org/articles/citizen-data-and-freedom-fears-people-living-hiv-india" target="_blank"&gt;https://www.genderit.org/articles/citizen-data-and-freedom-fears-people-living-hiv-india&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Sameet Panda. (November 25, 2020). One ration card, many left behind. Indian Express. &lt;a href="https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/one-ration-card-many-left-behind/" target="_blank"&gt;https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/one-ration-card-many-left-behind/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Sameet Panda (January 11, 2020). One Nation One Ration Card in Odisha - Only Pain, No Gain. Sanchar, page 6. &lt;a href="https://sancharodisha.com/" target="_blank"&gt;https://sancharodisha.com/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Santa Khurai. (June 18, 2020). 'I feel the pain of having nowhere to go': A Manipuri trans woman recounts her ongoing lockdown ordeal. Firstpost. &lt;a href="https://www.firstpost.com/india/i-feel-the-pain-of-having-nowhere-to-go-a-manipuri-trans-woman-recounts-her-ongoing-lockdown-ordeal-8494321.html" target="_blank"&gt;https://www.firstpost.com/india/i-feel-the-pain-of-having-nowhere-to-go-a-manipuri-trans-woman-recounts-her-ongoing-lockdown-ordeal-8494321.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Shreya Ila Anasuya. (December 21, 2020). How India’s Healthcare System Lets Down Trans Men. Go Mag. &lt;a href="http://gomag.com/article/heres-what-its-like-to-be-a-trans-man-in-india/" target="_blank"&gt;http://gomag.com/article/heres-what-its-like-to-be-a-trans-man-in-india/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h3&gt;Policy Response&lt;/h3&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Aayush Rathi, Aman Nair, Ambika Tandon, Pallavi Bedi, Sapni Krishna, and Shweta Mohandas. (September 13, 2020). Inputs to the Report on the Non-Personal Data Governance Framework. The Centre for Internet and Society. &lt;a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/inputs-to-report-on-non-personal-data-governance-framework/" target="_blank"&gt;https://cis-india.org/raw/inputs-to-report-on-non-personal-data-governance-framework/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h3&gt;Report&lt;/h3&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Anchita Ghatak. (December 30, 2020). Domestic Workers’ Access to Secure Livelihoods in West Bengal. Parichiti. &lt;a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/parichiti-domestic-workers-access-to-secure-livelihoods-west-bengal" target="_blank"&gt;https://cis-india.org/raw/parichiti-domestic-workers-access-to-secure-livelihoods-west-bengal&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;hr /&gt;
&lt;h3&gt;Endnotes&lt;/h3&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;[1]&lt;/strong&gt; Aayush Rathi, &lt;a href="https://www.epw.in/engage/article/indias-digital-health-paradigm-foolproof" target="_blank"&gt;Is India's Digital Health System Foolproof?&lt;/a&gt; (2019)&lt;br /&gt;
Aayush Rathi and Ambika Tandon, &lt;a href="https://www.epw.in/engage/article/data-infrastructures-inequities-why-does-reproductive-health-surveillance-india-need-urgent-attention" target="_blank"&gt;Data Infrastructures and Inequities: Why Does Reproductive Health Surveillance in India Need Our Urgent Attention?&lt;/a&gt; (2019)&lt;br /&gt;
Ambika Tandon, &lt;a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/ambika-tandon-december-23-2018-feminist-methodology-in-technology-research" target="_blank"&gt;Feminist Methodology in Technology Research: A Literature Review&lt;/a&gt; (2018)&lt;br /&gt;
Ambika Tandon, &lt;a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/big-data-reproductive-health-india-mcts" target="_blank"&gt;Big Data and Reproductive Health in India: A Case Study of the Mother and Child Tracking System&lt;/a&gt; (2019)&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;

        &lt;p&gt;
        For more details visit &lt;a href='https://cis-india.org/raw/reclaiming-the-right-to-privacy-researching-the-intersection-of-privacy-and-gender'&gt;https://cis-india.org/raw/reclaiming-the-right-to-privacy-researching-the-intersection-of-privacy-and-gender&lt;/a&gt;
        &lt;/p&gt;
    </description>
    <dc:publisher>No publisher</dc:publisher>
    <dc:creator>Ambika Tandon and Aayush Rathi</dc:creator>
    <dc:rights></dc:rights>

    
        <dc:subject>Data Systems</dc:subject>
    
    
        <dc:subject>Reproductive and Child Health</dc:subject>
    
    
        <dc:subject>Research</dc:subject>
    
    
        <dc:subject>Gender, Welfare, and Privacy</dc:subject>
    
    
        <dc:subject>Researchers at Work</dc:subject>
    

   <dc:date>2021-01-25T10:42:51Z</dc:date>
   <dc:type>Blog Entry</dc:type>
   </item>




</rdf:RDF>
