Philipp ULBRICH, University of Glasgow, United Kingdom
João PORTO DE ALBUQUERQUE, University of Glasgow, United Kingdom
Recent data governance discussions suggest that views of digital sovereignty have expanded from a state level-security and infrastructural understanding related to territoriality to one of citizen self-determination and critical awareness of data. Here commentators particularly refer to the need to address the power imbalance in data governance by enabling citizens’ critical and empowered engagement with their data and the digital ecosystem relating to their daily activities (Pohle and Thiel, 2020). This shift in the debate regarding digital sovereignty coincides with the increased use of citizen-generated data for urban risk management and development, which in turn raises questions regarding the inherent power balance and digital data sovereignty. With their histories of marginalisation and self-empowerment, these questions are of particular relevance for underserved communities living in self-constructed neighbourhoods in the global South – which to date appear to have received limited attention in the debates regarding digital data sovereignty. With the case study of two such communities located on the slopes of Niterói-Brazil and Medellín-Colombia, this paper analyses the extent to which community-generated data with open digital platforms enhances digital data sovereignty of communities and their ability to meaningfully use the data to self-empower and negotiate with municipal authorities regarding urban service provision and risk reduction. The paper thus provides a detailed initial insight into the parameters of community digital data sovereignty in the global South, and their relation to the transformative role of the data (Porto de Albuquerque et al., 2021), further pointing to a research agenda which focuses on community digital data sovereignty at the intersection between power, the function and role of data, and the transformative impacts of community data generation.
Mots clés : digital data sovereignty|community data|citizen-generated data|data governance|global South
A104526PU