Data Champion: Anna Colom

Research Student, FASS – POLIS

ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3696-1463

Twitter: @Anna_Colom

Research interests: I am a PhD candidate at the Department of Politics and International Studies. My research applies a feminist intersectional approach to exploring how mobile technologies, in particular access and use of WhatsApp, mediates the citizenship capabilities of young women in Western Kenya. The research seeks to contribute to conceptualising citizenship in a postcolonial context and to a critical understanding of the transformational role of mobile technologies for young people experiencing multiple and overlapping oppression. My research and interests cut across politics and international studies, information and communication technologies, development policy and practice, and social psychology. They also include feminist and participatory methodologies.

My data: I work with a mix of data resulting from a digital ethnography approach. This includes social media data, online observation and discussions, face-to-face interviews.

Why I became a Data Champion: Digital technologies and internet research methods have brought up new challenges in ethics and data management and the responses to these are not always straight-forward. I have supported international organisations to understand how to use and manage social media data and I have also faced dilemmas with my own research. These reasons have motivated me to become a Data Champion and contribute to support others facing similar challenges.