Thinking Through the Materiality of Big Data: An Outward‐Looking Approach to Data Infrastructure

Mengzhu Zhang, Jiang Xu, Pengjun Zhao and Calvin King Lam Chung

Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie, 2025, vol. 116, issue 3, 242-264

Abstract: This review paper advances a typology for research involving big data, highlighting a niche yet expanding scholarship on the provision and consumption of data infrastructure. By elucidating the epistemological underpinnings and analytical gaze of this strand of work, we conceptualise an outward‐looking approach to understanding data infrastructure. This perspective is vital in thinking through the materiality of big data and acknowledging the significant role that the practices of big data collection, storage, transfer, and computation play in (re)shaping spaces and places, thereby deepening our insights into sociospatial transformations. To demonstrate this approach, we used recent developments in the big data sector to elaborate on and discuss selected accounts of (a) uneven development, (b) geopolitics–economics nexus over city‐regional transformation, and (c) urban sociospatial restructuring and inequality. The discussion paves the way for scholarly contributions in the realm of geographical political economy and related fields.

Date: 2025
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:tvecsg:v:116:y:2025:i:3:p:242-264

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