Five Data Justice Fellows from four different continents have joined the Data Justice Lab to contribute to our current work on Democratising the Datafied Society. From 1 June to 31 August, they are conducting research on the impacts of data systems – such as facial recognition, health data infrastructure and benefits scoring systems – on affected communities, and they are exploring people’s responses and strategies of participation and resistance. Each of the fellows is thus providing distinct perspectives and insights to the broader question of how the voices of impacted communities can be both understood and enhanced in the discourse on datafication.

Introducing our fellows:

Georgia van Toorn is a postdoctoral research fellow at the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society, at the University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia. A political sociologist, her current research investigates the politics of algorithmic injustice from a critical disability perspective. Her project at the Data Justice lab focuses on automated decision-making systems in the public sector and how these can be influenced, resisted, and reoriented to promote disability justice. 

Ramya Chandrasekhar is a lawyer and a researcher studying data regulation and governance from critical perspectives. Ramya is a fellow with the Berkeley Centre of Law Technology, and has worked with the World Bank, UNICEF, Guarini Global Law & Tech, and the Internet Democracy Project. As a Data Justice fellow, Ramya critically examines India’s national digital health ecosystem. She aims to locate different “data publics” that are constituted by this data infrastructure and analyse how these publics participate in democratic regulation of data infrastructure.

Sananda Sahoo is a Ph.D. candidate in Media Studies at the Faculty of Information and Media Studies, Western University, Canada. She looks at the intersections of public, public space, and digital infrastructures. Her previous research had addressed, among other issues, sites of violence in the digital sphere, data imaginaries in colonial and democratic India, and colonial narratives in photographs and memoirs by women. Her project as Data Justice Fellow focuses on facial recognition systems in India and civil society responses.

Brian Tshuma is a digital policy specialist with a background in law and politics, having previously served as a parliamentarian in Zimbabwe. He is a doctoral student in the Department of Digital Humanities at King’s College, UK, with research interests spanning over data stewardship, governance and regulation of AI, IOT, and other emerging data innovations in the global south context. Brian’s Data Justice Fellowship project engages with Ghana’s digital landscape and seeks to test models of civic participation in datafied contexts evolving in sub-Saharan Africa.

Juan Diego Castañeda is a Colombian researcher and activist on technology and social justice. He has worked at Fundación Karisma analyzing the implementation of digital technologies, advocating for better protection of human rights, and strengthening social justice within that context. He has a background in Law and Social Studies and is currently completing a Master degree in Public Policy. As a Data Justice Fellow, he analyses the intersections of social benefits scoring systems and civic participation.