Time: 10:30AM- 12:00PM, Tuesday August 19

Venue: LIB 1115

Speaker: Dr. Yu Sun, Lecturer/Assistant Professor in Media and Sociology, University of Glasgow

Abstract:

With the rapid development of digital technologies, big data serves as the new mediators of political interventions and actions, generating new forms of political activism. The tactical use of data technologies in enhancing social justices is seen as data activism. This talk presents how data technologies have been appropriated to develop new action repertoires and enhance public advocacy in the environmental realm by civil society organisations in China. Moving beyond the dualist approach to contentious politics of data, this work draws on the notion of contentious publicness to trace the interrelated material, spatial and temporal relations in data-mediated contentions to capture the relational struggles for environmental justices in the authoritarian context of China.

The talk focuses on a case of data activism initiated to tackle environmental pollution and reduce carbon emissions by The Institute of Public & Environmental Affairs (IPE), an ENGO based in Beijing.  Through ethnographic case study, it explores the power relations that shape the material infrastructure and the space for the public to engage in environmental action and the sustainability of their action repertoires. This talk will shed light on the material, spatial and temporal dimensions of the activists’ data practices to engage the public in monitoring pollution and carbon emissions.

Speaker’s Bio:

Yu Sun is a lecturer/assistant professor in Media and Sociology and a member of the Glasgow University Media Group (GUMG) at University of Glasgow, the UK. Her research interests involve deliberative democracy, digital activism, feminist media studies, environmental communication, critical data studies, digital infrastructure and social governance, etc.