Big crisis data: generality-singularity tensions

Abstract

The current massive surge of digital data, measurements and new forms of (algorithmic) valuation affects emergency situations (both natural and human-made crises) and emergency management systems. By introducing ‘big crisis data’, the very concepts of emergency and crisis rely heavily on the calculations of events and crowd behaviour, constituting, controlling and shifting the interplay between different actors. From a critical data perspective, this paper focuses on the entanglements of crisis digital data assemblages with human and institutional actions, stressing the risks and challenges of the underlying data practices of two key processes - what could be called valorisation and singularisation.