Our Data, Our Selves is informed primarily by two theoretical methodologies: philosophical genealogy and philosophical pragmatism.

• Genealogy is developed in Colin Koopman, Genealogy as Critique: Foucault and the Problems of Modernity (Indiana University Press, 2013).
  • This work builds on writings by Michel Foucault, Ian Hacking, Paul Rabinow, Arnold Davidson, Bernard Williams, & others. The collaborative support of the Critical Genealogies Workshop and Critical Genealogies Collaboratory has been both nourishing and necessary.
• Pragmatism is developed in Colin Koopman, Pragmatism as Transition: Historicity and Hope in James, Dewey, and Rorty (Columbia University Press, 2009).
  • This work builds on writings by William James, John Dewey, Richard, & others. Important for subsequent work on pragmatism after the book above are the writings and data research projects of W.E.B. Du Bois.

The work in data genealogy that most fully informs this site is published in:

• Colin Koopman, How We Became Our Data: A Genealogy of the Informational Person (University of Chicago Press, 2019).

Additional publications in data genealogy informing this site include:

• Colin Koopman, “The Political Theory of Data: Institutions, Algorithms, and Formats in Racial Redlining," in Political Theory, v50n2 (2021): 337-361.  [https://doi.org/10.1177/00905917211027835]
• Critical Genealogies Collaboratory (coauthored by Colin Koopman, Patrick Jones, Valérie Simon, Paul Showler, and Mary McLevey), “When Data Drive Health: An Archaeology of Medical Records Technology," in BioSocieties (2021).  [https://doi.org/10.1057/s41292-021-00249-1]
• Colin Koopman, "Coding the Self: The Infopolitics and Biopolitics of Genetic Sciences," in The Hastings Center Report, v50n3 (2020): S6-S14 [https://doi.org/10.1002/hast.1150]
• Colin Koopman, "Information Before Information Theory: The Politics of Data Beyond the Perspective of Communication," in New Media & Society, v21n6 (2019): 1326-1343.  [https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444818820300]
• Critical Genealogies Collaboratory (coauthored by Colin Koopman, Bonnie Sheehey, Patrick Jones, Laura Smithers, Sarah Hamid, and Claire Pickard), “Standard Forms of Power: Biopower and Sovereign Power in the Technology of the US Birth Certificate, 1903–1935,” Constellations 25, no. 4 (Dec. 2018): 641–56.  [https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8675.12372]

Further resources can be found on the topics pages.