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data not found is a dataset of datasets that were sought but not found on data portals around the world.

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data not found

"I have been trying, for about the last twenty years, to link the following three dimensions: lived experience, technologies [...], and silences." - Susan Leigh Star

data not found is a dataset of datasets that were sought but not found on data portals around the world.

It invites consideration of what is and is not counted as public data, what kinds of information public bodies do and do not collect and make available, and what kinds of questions it is and is not possible to answer with public sector data.

The project traces and archives encounters between citizens and public servants on data portals, surfacing different understandings and assumptions about what data portals are for, what can be done on them, and what kinds of data one might expect institutions to gather and open up.

Rather than assuming a kind of "data universalism", these unsuccessful attempts to obtain data through portals highlight some of the different ways in which data comes to matter to different people in different situations. What is considered missing data, absent data, a "data gap" or a "data void" is contingent, relational and situational.

The as yet unsuccessful requests have been selected from data portals around the world to illustrate a diversity of interests, concerns, curiosities and queries for data that does not exist. They are not intended to be representative of all requests on all portals as:

  • Not all data portals make requests and responses to these requests available.
  • Not all unsuccessful data requests have been included (e.g. those containing personal details, duplicate requests, requests which are redirected).

The source list can be found at data/sources.csv.

The project draws on previous and ongoing work on data politics and missing data, including Data Worlds (forthcoming, MIT Press), "What do data portals do? Tracing the politics of online devices for making data public" as well as:

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