INTRODUCTION: DATA JUSTICE AND THE RIGHT TO THE CITY
Morgan Currie, Jeremy Knox, Callum McGregor
Abstract
This chapter argues that the concept of data justice can inform and enrich practices motivated by the Right to the City (RTTC). RTTC is, at heart, a radical concept of citizenship that calls for the collective design of urban life, of 'affordable housing, a decent school for the kids, accessible services, reliable public transport. The right to have your urban horizon as wide or as narrow as you want' (Merrifield 2017). The comparatively nascent concept of data justice seeks to understand how datafication of everyday life, predominantly but not solely in urban contexts, compounds existing social injustices and creates new ones. While the lens of data justice helps illustrate how and why an analysis of datafication is today integral to the RTTC, the RTTC cautions against the political co-option of data justice into technocratic and privatised 'data for good' initiatives.