Managing Uncertainty in Disaster Risk Reduction ─ An Ethnography of Data Practices in Ghana’s Emergency Preparedness and Early Intervention Infrastructure

Project Information

MUNDI

Grant agreement ID: 101103848

DOI

10.3030/101103848

Project closed

EC signature date 29 June 2023

Start date 1 September 2023

End date 31 August 2025

Funded under

• Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)

Total cost

No data

EU contribution

€ 230 774,40

Coordinated by

IT-UNIVERSITETET I KOBENHAVN
Denmark

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - MUNDI (Managing Uncertainty in Disaster Risk Reduction ─ An Ethnography of Data Practices in Ghana’s Emergency Preparedness and Early Intervention Infrastructure)

Reporting period: 2023-09-01 to 2025-08-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The project “Managing Uncertainty in Disaster Risk Reduction (MUNDI) ─ An Ethnography of Data Practices in Ghana’s Emergency Preparedness and Early Intervention Infrastructure” was motivated by the urgent need to understand best practices for emergency response in contexts of constrained data coverage and quality. The project’s methodology sought to illuminate the so far invisible, collaborative “backstage” labour of frontline data practitioners with platformized data collection and analysis tools. It did so through a thick ethnographic engagement with data practices and inter-agency “data journeys” in three different emergency contexts in Ghana: flooding, disease outbreak, and man-made disasters in connection with (mining) accidents.
The project pursued three interrelated scientific objectives. Objective 1 – Institutional arrangements – mapped the institutional landscape of disaster datafication in Ghana. Objective 2 – Data practices – entailed a praxeography of the production of disaster data in these networks. Objective 3 – Acceleration – mobilized STS approaches to understand the participation of computational infrastructures in the acceleration of disaster datafication.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

Ethnographic fieldwork was carried out within national level and local head offices of Ghana’s main disaster and emergency organisations. Interviews, participant observations, and document analysis in these settings allowed me to map the relationships and interactions between the relevant institutions, data infrastructures, as well as in different regional socio-political contexts (Objective 1). Regarding Objective 2, in each institution, ethnographic data collection narrowed in on the data practices surrounding disaster datafication, as well as data sharing and analysis between institutions. In each case, particular attention was paid to the participation of digital technologies, and the involvement of platforms in the streamlining data flows, connecting agencies in new ways, and generating thereby opportunities for accelerated intervention (Objective 3).
The work carried out across the three objectives has led to the publication of seven research articles. In addition, the recently published edition “The Social Life of Health Data: Health Records and Knowledge Production in Ghana” (co-edited with Samuel Ntewusu) opens the conversation to larger historical and socio-technical complexities of Ghana’s health registration system.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

MUNDI contributes novel insights into data practices in Ghana’s disaster management and emergency response organizations. Grounding its data collection and analysis in experts’ everyday interactions with technology, the project moved beyond institutionalized narratives of data production and opened up the investigation to forms of habitual, everyday innovations with knowledge infrastructure, for example in the mobilization of indicator species in community-based early warning. The project further situated these dynamics within larger techno-political contexts, such as international funding and reporting streams or Ghana’s ongoing decentralization agenda, as they shape disaster officials’ data practices and orientation towards emerging data infrastructure.
Shifting the analytical gaze towards innovation and creative problem-solving in everyday data practices provides the platform for future investigations into official modes of statistical reasoning in contexts of fundamental uncertainty. MUNDI’s findings will be consolidated through an ERC Starting Grant (2025-2030), which explores statistical innovation in a broader, comparative light – expanding thereby on MUNDI’s ethnographic method innovations and theoretical ambition.