Inflated Granularity: Spatial ‘Big Data’ and Geodemographics

Abstract

Data analytics, particularly the current rhetoric around ‘big data’ tend to be presented as new and innovative, emerging ahistorically to revolutionize modern life. In this article, we situate one branch of ‘big data’ analytics, spatial ‘big data’, through a historical predecessor, geodemographic analysis. Spatial ‘big data’ promises an epistemic break in marketing, a leap from targeting geographic areas to targeting individuals. Yet it inherits characteristics from geodemographics, including an orientation towards and justification through the market, and a process of commodification through the black-boxing of technology. In addition, epistemological problems within geodemographics helped set the stage for the individual orientation in spatial ‘big data’ analytics. As researchers develop sustained critiques of data analytics and its affects on everyday life, it is important to do so with a grounding in the cultural and historical contexts from which data technologies emerged. This article and others (Barnes and Wilson, 2014) begin to detail a critical history of ‘big data’. Spatial ‘big data’ carries over critical issues from geodemographics: its roles in surveillance, redlining, and the production of consumer subjects and geographies. The shared histories and structural logics of spatial ‘big data’ and geodemographics create the space for a continued critique of data analyses’ role in society.

Keywords: Big data, geodemographics, data science, analytics, black box, critical data studies