[liberationtech] Tech/Data in aid of grassroots transparency and accountability?

[Yosem Companys]

From: Veeraraghavan, Rajesh <rajesh_veeraraghavan at brown.edu>

Dear all,

We are currently working on a research project that seeks to broaden the
discourse of the open-data and civic tech movements. We would love to chat
with you and further articulate our project and get your thoughts if this
piques your interest.

Here is a brief overview of the project.

Both the civic technology and open data movements has been largely
dominated by talk of data itself and the actors who are dominating this
space are the people who are able to manipulate data, in other words data
scientists or technologists.(Maybe such broad brush characterization of
technologists like that is a problem in of itself!))There has been less
focus on understanding the perspectives of people who are using data (and
could be using data) at the very grassroots, from social movement actors,
activists and little known NGOs.

We are interested in hearing from participants in the grassroots
accountability campaigns. We are looking to understand grassroots uptake of
the Transparency/Accountability approach, how they understand and they
envision it. Specifically, our focus is in understanding their
data/information/technology use.

Our goal to talk to them is to understand their work, in their own terms.
This is to both amplify an alternate discourse to the mainstream, as well
as finding ways to support activists work through brokering with funders.

If you are working in the area in any capacity - we want to talk to you to
help us identify people to speak to and also to get your take on the
project. Please let me know if you have some time to chat over skype.

Thanks!

Rajesh & Andrea

Rajesh Veeraraghavan
Postdoctoral Fellow at Watson Institute of International Affairs, Brown
University
rajesh at brown.edu

Andrea Menapace
Transparency & Accountability Initiative, London.
andrea.menapace at transparency-initiative.org
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