The Many Faces of Data Access Legal and Policy Implications for Research

This volume provides an interdisciplinary critique of regulation and, in the process, opens the ‘black box’ of technology companies to researchers. The anthology brings together scholars from across the globe, that work in varied fields, from critical legal studies, science and technology studies, critical data studies to digital humanities. The book explores questions of data access – to acquire and use data meaningfully as well as resist power. It covers themes such as opportunities and challenges of the law as a tool for observing digital infrastructures, the political economy of data access for research, and the power dynamics between academia, private/public sector, and civil society. The publication also examines these questions in terms of the politics of knowledge production and investigates whether there is a privileging of geographical and institutional contexts in data access regimes.