New collaborative space: COVID-19 from the margins

Data are at the core of the narration of the pandemic. Numbers affect our ability to care, share empathy, and donate to relief efforts and emergency services. Numbers are the condition of existence of the problem, and of a country or given social reality on the global map of concerns. Yet most countries from the so-called Global South are virtually absent from this number-based narration of the pandemic, and so are many invisible populations like migrants. Why, and with what consequences? To answer this and many other pressing questions, we have launched a new collaborative space: COVID-19 from the margins.

The multilingual blog COVID-19 from the margins [0] invites contributions reflecting on the first pandemic of the datafied society as it intersects situations of marginality, inequality, alterity, poverty but also resistance and subversion. Thanks to the support of the Amsterdam School of Cultural Analysis (University of Amsterdam), we are currently able to ***offer a small compensation to authors of accepted blog posts*** who are in precarious job conditions, are students or unemployed, and/or from the Global South. Requests will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. To contribute visit [1] for English and [2] for Spanish. Any other language accepted!

So far the blog features articles on the widening data divide in the global South, the perils of biometric social welfare during lockdowns, invisibilized populations (e.g. migrants) in the European continent, the privacy hurdles of newly adopted contact tracing app in India. More are on the way. This blog is part of the Big Data from the South Research Initiative [3]. It is funded by the Amsterdam School of Cultural Analysis, the School of Journalism, Media and Culture at Cardiff University and the European Research Council (through the DATACTIVE project).

Best & stay safe... And help us to spread the word!

The editorial crew--Emiliano Treré (Cardiff University), Silvia Masiero (Loughborough University) & Stefania Milan (University of Amsterdam)

[0] https://data-activism.net/blog-covid-19-from-the-margins/

[1] https://data-activism.net/2020/05/how-to-contribute-to-covid-19-from-the-margins/

[2] https://data-activism.net/2020/05/como-colaborar-en-covid-19-from-the-margins/

[3] https://data-activism.net/publications/big-data-from-the-south/