Big Data Panel at 4S Conference [CFP]

We are looking for people who are interested in presenting a paper at this year’s 4S Annual Meeting (October 9-12, 2013, San Diego, California) in a session we are organising on Big Data: Symbols, Practices, and Epistemic Uncertainties (see details below).

Session Proposal
Title: Big Data: Symbols, Practices, and Epistemic Uncertainties

Convenors: Chiara Garattini (Health Strategy & Solutions, Intel Corporation) and Dawn Nafus (Intel Labs, Intel Corporation).

Abstract: In the last couple of years “Big Data” has attracted increasing attention in academic, industrial and popular discourse. But what is being exactly referred to as Big Data and what are its implications? In images of data as a “gold mine” or “the new oil,” or even in Manovich’s (2012) notion of big data as a collapse of substance and surface, the sheer size and heterogeneity of these data bring back the analogue into the digital world in both the imagination and the practical lives of users. Practice, too, suggests its own trajectories. Keating & Cambrosio (2012) see an intensely debated shift from a hypothesis-driven to a data-driven approach in the world of medical scientific enquiry.

Our own work suggests that movements like the Quantified Self constitute sites of dialogue between those who approach big data as a panoptical stabilization of populations, and those who are devising alternatives in response to more immediate social and material contexts. This panel explores what happens when big data practice and big data discourse confront each other in a variety of domains. What socio-technical trajectories, new and old epistemics, and even forms of resistance emerge? This panel seeks paper proposals that offer perspectives on this issue from different spheres such as finance, health, entertainment, security and demographics.

Conference: Society for Social Studies of Science (4S) Annual Meeting, San Diego October 9-12, 2013.

Please write to chiara.garattini@intel.com if interested.

Best regards,
Chiara

Chiara Garattini, PhD
Anthropology & UX

HSS UK Health and Life Sciences Innovation Team,
Intel Corporation

1st Floor, Faculty Building, Exhibition Road, SW7 2AZ
Imperial College London

iNet: 87776951
t: +44 (0)20 7977 6951
e: chiara.garattini@intel.com
w: www.intel.com/healthcare