Get the hammer out!

Breaking computational tools for feminist, intersectional “small data” research

Abstract

This paper focuses on revealing how the interplay between algorithmic interactions and the intuitive ways humans navigate digital environments can be researched through a multi-method approach to collecting and critically examining data from online platforms. We use a case study that looks at the role that social media engagement by transnational activists, local activists and celebrities played in amplifying an offline protest by group of women in India. Grounded in a critical feminist perspective, this paper uses multiple methods to demonstrate how the amplification of local protesters work through an interplay of human action and platform algorithmics. We conduct an algorithmic ethnography involving the examination of computational systems shaping online interactions. We examine the digital emergence and recognition of the women of Shaheen Bagh as subaltern political agents/subjects. Understanding of the interplay between online and offline visibility and strategic planning is highlighted. We conduct close readings of small data clusters that emerge within big data networks. We challenge the overreliance on big data methodologies and the fetishization of in-person ethnography (Bishop 2018) over digital ethnography.