Anita Say Chan is an Associate Professor of Communications in School of Information Sciences and the College of Media at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. At UIUC, she directs the Community Data Clinic at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, running active partnerships with Cunningham Township, Champaign County Community Coalition, and the Champaign Country Mental Health Board. Her first book, Networking Peripheries: Technological Futures and the Myth of Digital Universalism (MIT Press, 2014), explored the competing imaginaries of global connection and information technologies in network-age Peru. As a 2019-20 Data & Society Fellow, she researches decolonial, feminist data methods. This summer, she will be a Fulbright Specialist at the University Javeriana in Bogota advancing work on the relational infrastructures of feminist data collectives in Latin America.
Anita Say Chan

Anita Say Chan studies feminist data cultures, data justice networks, and research practice across the global Americas.
Featured Work
Academic Article
Networking Peripheries: Technological Futures and the Myth of Digital Universalism
Read on Political and Legal Anthropology Review
Academic Article
Situating Data in a Trumpian Era: The Environmental Data and Governance Initiative
Read on Annals of the American Association of Geographers
Manifesto
Feminist Data Manifest-No
Read on the Manifest-no website
All Work
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Data & SocietyLearn about the work of our 2019-2020 Fellows over this past year. Read moreJune 2020 -
blog post
PointsAnthropologist Anita Say Chan, interviewed by Data & Society Events Producer Rigoberto Lara Guzmán & Communications Associate Natalie Kerby. Read on PointsApril 2020 -
Longform
FEMINIST DATA MANIFEST-NOIn collaboration with other scholars, Faculty Fellow Anita Say Chan lays out the demands for a feminist data manifest-no. Read on FEMINIST DATA MANIFEST-NOJanuary 2020 -
event
podcast
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Data & SocietyCharlton McIlwain shares African Americans' role in the Internet's creation and evolution. Read moreNovember 2019 -
Academic Article
Society for Social Studies of ScienceAnita Say Chan co-authors a report on the future of 4S. Read on Society for Social Studies of ScienceJuly 2019 -
Academic Article
Annals of the American Associate of GeographersAnita Say Can introduces the concept of environmental data justice. Read on Annals of the American Associate of GeographersDecember 2017 -
Academic Article
Political and Legal Anthropology Review"Anita Say Chan’s work, Networking Peripheries, situates the idea of digital futures, and how these are being imagined in the so-called periphery." Read on Political and Legal Anthropology ReviewMay 2017