Missing Data

Abstract

There are several different definitions of missing data. While some might refer to data that is literally absent, as in statistical approaches to missing data that attempts to interpolate what might fill in the gaps,1 others, such as the artist and educator Mimi Ọnụọha, take “missing data” to mean something more political — “something [that] does not exist, but it should.”2 In the same line as Ọnụọha, our definition of missing data refers to information that goes uncounted (or otherwise unrecorded), despite social and political demands that such data should be collected and made available. Our concept of missing data may include entirely absent data, as well as data that is sparse, neglected, poorly collected and maintained, purposely removed, difficult to access, infrequently updated, contested, and/or underreported. Missing data, in the expanded definition we propose in this essay, is a political concept. On one hand, missing data can function as a challenge from civil society to formal institutions, including governments, religious institutions, and corporations. In these cases, it represents a demand from specific communities about public issues that concern society writ large. On the other hand, missing data may be actively desired and produced by marginalized groups seeking to protect information about their community and culture from the eyes of institutions. In these cases, the data is “missing” for institutions, which make a demand for information that is actively protected by and kept within a community. In this sense, missing data is also a relational concept because it implies a directionality — an informatic demand from one group or institution to another group or institution. Missing data is not always a bad thing, nor always a good thing. Instead of thinking of it normatively, the locus of analysis should be on the social context, who is making the demand to whom, and the political context for which specific information is deemed to be missing. Our definition differs from other more technical notions of missing data that may not consider or highlight the unbalanced power relationships between different social actors, such as marginalized communities and the state. In this sense, the definition of missing data proposed here explicitly includes a political demand, because the group making the demand for information is trying to charge another group or institution with the responsibility for the absence of this data. When this relates to marginalized groups making demands on the state, groups are also trying to assert the institutional neglect of the group or issue represented by the data. Given the focus on the datafied state, this article will focus particularly on missing data related to governments, where civil society groups demand that the government collect specific data or where the government demands data that communities seek to protect.