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Reworking Open Data is a new project at the Sussex Digital Humanities Lab (SHL Digital). Funded by the Economic and Social Sciences Research Council (ESRC) Connect pilot scheme, Reworking Open Data builds a new interdisciplinary network to test how insights from archival theory, archival ethics, and data infrastructure studies can reshape how open qualitative data are understood, shared, and governed.

Foundations of critical open data studies

Reworking Open Data draws on an intersectional feminist ethics of care and emerging archival theory and reframes data archiving not as a technical endpoint or compliance exercise, but as an ongoing relational practice that expands responsibilities and relationships around research data. It proposes a rapid, exploratory intervention that brings together qualitative researchers, archival theorists, and data infrastructure specialists to rethink how qualitative data archiving might be conceptualised and enacted differently and establish the foundations of critical open data studies.

"By bringing feminist ethics of care into conversation with archival theory and data infrastructure studies, this project will help us rethink what open data can and should look like, creating approaches that are more ethical, inclusive and responsive to the realities of qualitative research”, SHL Digital joint-director and project Co-Lead Dr Sharon Webb says.

Three interconnected aims

The project will work towards three interconnected aims;

• develop new conceptual approaches to qualitative data archiving grounded in critical archival theory and ethics of care;
• generate practical ethical resources for researchers navigating open data mandates;
• build new interdisciplinary networks capable of reimagining qualitative data infrastructures beyond one-size-fits-all models.

An interdisciplinary collaboration

The project is led by Dr Niamh Moore at the newly established Edinburgh Futures Institute. The team at Sussex is formed by SHL Digital joint-director Dr Sharon Webb (History), Professor Rachel Thomson (Social Work) and Jessica Scantlebury (Mass Observation Archive).

About the project team Sharon says:

“It is a true mix of inter-disciplinary perspectives, and it’s a real privilege to work alongside existing scholarly partners, the PI Dr Niamh Moore (University of Edinburgh), and new collaborators including Prof Michelle Caswell (UCLA), Dr Mary F Hanlon (Okanagan College, BC, Canada), Martina Karels (St Francis College, New York, US), and Robin Rice (Research Data Services, University of Edinburgh).”

ESRC Connect

The ESRC Connect Scheme gives researchers the opportunity to come together to shape new fields of research, laying the groundwork for future strategic research and innovation. By combining innovative forms of collaboration with the exploration of new ideas across and beyond the social sciences, these awards are designed to stimulate early-stage ideas that could grow into transformative collaborations and programmes in the future.

Learn more about the project here: Reworking Open Data