DATA RESISTANCE: A SOCIAL MOVEMENT ORGANIZATIONAL AUTOETHNOGRAPHY OF THE ENVIRONMENTAL DATA AND GOVERNANCE INITIATIVE*
The dismantlement of evidence-based environmental governance by the Trump administration requires new forms of activism that uphold science and environmental regulatory agencies while critiquing the politics of knowledge production. The Environmental Data and Governance Initiative (EDGI) emerged after the November 2016 U.S. presidential elections, becoming an organization of over 175 volunteer researchers, technologists, archivists, and activists innovating more just forms of government accountability and environmental regulation. Our successes include: (1) leading a public movement to archive vulnerable federal data evidencing climate change and environmental injustice; (2) conducting multisited interviews of current and former federal agency personnel regarding the transition into the Trump administration; (3) tracking changes to federal websites. In this article, we conduct a “social movement organizational autoethnography” on the field of movements intersecting within EDGI and on our theory, tactics, and practices. We offer ideas for expanding and iterating on methods of public, collaborative scholarship and advocacy.
Contributor Notes
* Lourdes A. Vera is a doctoral student in the department of Sociology and Anthropology at Northeastern University. Lindsey Dillon is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at UC Santa Cruz. Sara Wylie is Assistant Professor of Sociology and Anthropology and Health Sciences at Northeastern University. Jennifer Liss Ohayon is Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Silent Spring Institute. Aaron Lemelin is an analyst at the Sunlight Foundation's Web Integrity Project, Phil Brown is University Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Anthropology and Health Sciences at Northeastern University. Christopher Sellers is a Professor of History at Stony Brook University. Dawn Walker is a PhD student at the University of Toronto. The Environmental Data and Governance Initiative is 175 members of caring and committed volunteers. Please direct all correspondence to: vera.l@husky.neu.edu.
† We are grateful to the David and Lucile Packard Foundation and the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation for support, and to Public Lab for fiscal sponsorship. Vera's research was supported by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number T32ES023769. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health. We are also grateful for the thoughtful feedback and suggestions from three anonymous reviewers.