The social imaginaries of data activism

Data activism, promoting new forms of civic and political engagement, has emerged as a response to problematic aspects of datafication that include tensions between data openness and data ownership, and asymmetries in terms of data usage and distribution. In this article, we discuss MyData, a data activism initiative originating in Finland, which aims to shape a more sustainable citizen-centric data economy by means of increasing individuals' control of their personal data. Using data gathered during long-term participant-observation in collaborative projects with data activists, we explore the internal tensions of data activism by first outlining two different social imaginaries – technological and socio-critical – within MyData, and then merging them to open practical and analytical space for engaging with the socio-technical futures currently in the making. While the technological imaginary favours data infrastructures as corrective measures, the socio-critical imaginary questions the effectiveness of ...