Dan Bouk, a Data & Society affiliate, researches the history of bureaucracies, quantification, and other modern things shrouded in cloaks of boringness. As a D&S fellow, he published House Arrest: How An Automated Algorithm Constrained Congress for a Century, and co-authored A Primer on Powerful Numbers with Kevin Ackermann and danah boyd. Bouk is the author of the books How Our Days Became Numbered (Chicago, 2015) and Democracy’s Data (MCDxFSG, 2022). He is currently at work on a history of budgets, data, expertise, and democracy in New York City.
Dan Bouk
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Dan Bouk studies the history of personal data.
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Data & SocietyScholars Dan Bouk, Kevin Ackermann, and danah boyd join forces on a thought-provoking resource that begins to explore the power of official numbers and public data. In A Primer on Powerful Numbers: Selected Readings in the Social Study of Public Data and Official Numbers, the authors touch on the power and authority that public numbers have in societies. Read moreMarch 2022 -
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Data & SocietyApril 2021 -
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AppleDan Bouk, a historian of data and bureaucracies, walks us through the entactment of Article 1, Section 2 of the Constitution, the system of white supermacy that was embedded in it, and the transformative role of the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s in the evolution of a more just Decennial US Census. Read on AppleJanuary 2021 -
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Data & SocietyLearn about the work of our 2019-2020 Fellows over this past year. Read moreJune 2020 -
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Harvard Data Science ReviewThere is no one "truth" to data. Read on Harvard Data Science ReviewMay 2020 -
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The HillThe census count cannot be delayed by COVID-19. Read on The HillApril 2020 -
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Data & SocietyThis workshop sought participants prepared to think about the process by which data is undermined. Read moreMarch 2020 -
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Census Stories, USAThe Census Bureau took (and takes) pride in its role as a pioneer in tabulating machinery. And for good reason: The census invented the punch card, preparing the way for the computer and information age. Read on Census Stories, USASeptember 2019 -
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Census Stories, USADan Bouk discusses the census from the lenses of chance, gender, and power. Read on Census Stories, USAAugust 2018