On Epistemic Extractivism and the Ethics of Data-Sharing

Abstract

In this article I argue that data-sharing risks becoming epistemically extractivist and is a practice sensitive to Linda Martín Alcoff´s challenges for extractivist epistemologies. I situate data-sharing as a socio-epistemic practice that gives rise to ethical and epistemic challenges. I draw on the findings of an institutional ethnography of an international social science research project to identify several ethical and epistemic concerns, including epistemic extractivism. I identify Alcoff’s first and second challenge for extractivist epistemologies in the findings of the empirical investigation and argue that they are important considerations for the ethics and socio-epistemological functioning of data-sharing in social science.