Data Practice for a Politics of Care: Food Assistance as a Site of Careful Data Work

This work reports on an 11 month-long collaboration with an organization resulting from institutional bricolage that has carefully designed tools and procedures for collecting data that enact an ethic of care. This caring data practice is characterized by defining success through relationships, attending to the social and cultural community context, and protecting vulnerable populations through non-collection. We share the organization’s practices, analyze how they support the organization in providing care, and offer recommendations for building caring data systems.