Morgan Currie

My research examines the way cultural, political, and economic factors interact with the design and development of data infrastructures. Particularly I look at how data infrastructures condition the possibility for forms of governance, civic behavior, and political struggle. My recent work analyses the datafication of city records – how city governments have embraced statistical tools to track performance, set goals, justify budget expenditures, direct public services, and interact with the public. I also draw from political theories of democracy, including American pragmatism and post-structuralist critical theory, to understand how civil society can use data as a tool to contest political issues. I use fieldwork, interviews, and case study analysis to ask how these new information cultures take shape, and how they might open – or foreclose – democratic participation and decision-making.

I earned a Ph.D. in Information Studies from University of California, Los Angeles, in 2017, and a Masters in New Media from the University of Amsterdam in 2010. I am now a Lecturer in Data and Society at Science, Technology, & Innovation Studies at the University of Edinburgh. Prior to my Lectureship I was was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Digital Civil Society Lab at Stanford University.