| Kommentar |
This seminar is concerned with the increasing datafication of nature, that is, the developments to turn nature, environments and their elements into actionable data sets. It concentrates on two interconnected questions: What happens to "nature" and its attendant configurations like biodiversity when they become apprehended exclusively through data, whether it is genetic, genomic, environmental, or financial? And what happens to our worlds, their polities and politics when data become, so to speak, naturalised? When data become the only universal, acceptable and, importantly, workable form capable of telling what matters? On the basis of concrete data gathering and data production efforts based at the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin, this seminar will explore theories, concepts and heuristic figures that allow us to problematise the scientific and technical conditions driving these developments. We will read texts from feminist science and technology studies, the history of science, critical data studies, and postcolonial theory. |
