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Thismaynotbestatedexplicitly,butthediscourseoninscribingdigitalrightsashumanrightsininternationalhumanrightslawoftenassumesthattheforceofsuchlawswillguaranteethatindividuals,states,corporations,andotherbodieswillperformthem.Thisassumptionfailstorecognizethathowpeopleexperiencebeingdigitalcitizensandhowtheyperformrightsbybringingthemintobeingthroughenactingthemselvesarethegroundsonwhichrightswillbeguaranteed.Howpeopleexperienceperformingrightsisthekeytounderstandinghowtheyinhabitthatspaceofrightsanddevelopapoliticalsubjectivitynecessarytomakingrightsclaims‘I,we,theyhavearightto’.Withoutsuchunderstandingandwithoutdevelopingconceptsandmethodsappropriatetosuchanunderstanding,mosteffortstoinscriberights,weareafraid,wouldremaininadequate,forthesewouldberightswithoutpoliticalsubjects.Conversely,thesamecanbesaidforthosewhoassumethattheenactmentofrights,ofimaginativelyandperformativelybringingrightsintobeing,wouldguaranteetheirinscription.Withoutunderstandingthelegalityofclaimsandtheirscopeorsubstance,suchenactmentswouldremaininadequate,too.Withouttheforceoflaw,thiswouldamounttosubjectswithoutpoliticalrights.Itisthatspacebetweeninscriptionandenactmentthatprovidescluestounderstandinghowdigitalcitizensareemergingaspoliticalsubjectsofoureraandthosewhosepoliticssidewitheitherinscriptionorenactmentaresomewhatmissingthesignificanceofthatrelation.

‘citizenjournalismunderstandspeopleashavingpoliticalroles,interestsandrelationships,andasactivelyinterestedinsharingnewstheydeemrelevant.Itunderstands,orperhapsintuits,thataknee-jerkdefinitionofallformsofjournalismasacquiringanddistributinginformationmissesthepoint.’

Inthisinstance,criticsprotestedthatTwitterwasinvolvedincensoringpoliticalcontent,butothershaveshownthatthecomplexalgorithmsoftheplatformorganizeandfiltercontentinwaysoftenbeyondtheintentionsoftheirdesigners.Ratherthanasimplemeasureofpopularity,thealgorithmisbasedonacombinationoffactors,andthosethatTwitterhasrevealedincludeidentifyingtopicsthatareenjoyingasurgeinaparticularway,suchaswhethertheuseofatermisspiking(acceleratingrapidlyratherthangradually),whetherusersofatermformatightsingleclusterorcutacrossmultipleclusters,whethertweetsareuniqueormostlyretweetsofthesamepost,andwhetherthetermhaspreviouslytrended

Toputitbluntly,fromourperspective,popularcriticshavebecometooconcernedaboutcyberspacecreatingobedientsubjectstopowerratherthanunderstandingthatcyberspaceiscreatingsubmissivesubjectsofpowerwhoarepotentiallycapableofsubversion.

Or,aswewouldputit,actingthroughtheInternetandmakingconnectionswithothersdoesnotreplace,displace,orsupplantotherwaysofactinginsocialorculturalspacesinwhichweareembedded.

Theempoweringpossibilitiesofaccessingandworkingwithdataalsounderpin‘opengovernmentdata’programmes.Opennessisextendedtomakinggovernmenttransparentthroughapublicrighttodataandfreedomtoinformation,aversionthatisalsoadvancedbycivicorganizationssuchasmySociety.[19]Thesecallforthanimaginaryofcitizensasdataanalystsequippedwiththeskillsnecessarytoanalysetheircommercialtransactionsandthusmakebetterdecisionsortoanalysethetransactionsofgovernmentsandthusholdthemtoaccount.

Inequalityisexpressedasleadingtotwodivisions:betweenthosewhodoanddonothaveaccessandbetweenthosewhodoordonotcontributetocontentorleavedigitaltraces.

Wecannotsimplyassumethatbeingadigitalcitizenalreadymeanssomething,suchastheabilitytoparticipate,andthenlookforwhoseconductconformstothismeaning.Rather,digitalactsarerefashioning,inventing,andmakingupcitizensubjectsthroughtheplayofobedience,submission,andsubversion

‘Theforceoftheperformativeisthusnotinheritedfrompriorusage,butissuesforthpreciselyfromitsbreakwithanyandallpriorusage.Thatbreak,thatforceofrupture,istheforceoftheperformative,beyondallquestionoftruthormeaning.’[22]Forpoliticalsubjectivity,‘performativitycanworkinpreciselysuchcounter-hegemonicways.Thatmomentinwhichaspeechactwithoutpriorauthorizationneverthelessassumesauthorizationinthecourseofitsperformancemayanticipateandinstatealteredcontextsforitsfuturereception.’[23]Toconceiveruptureasasystemicortotalupheavalwouldbefutile.Rather,ruptureisamomentwherethefuturebreaksthroughintothepresent.[24]Itisthatmomentwhereitbecomespossibletodosomethingdifferentinorbysayingsomethingdifferent.

wewillspecifydigitalacts—callings(demands,pressures,provocations),closings(tensions,conflicts,disputes),andopenings(opportunities,possibilities,beginnings)—aswaysofconductingourselvesthroughtheInternetanddiscusshowthesebringcyberspaceintobeing

Deleuzethinksthat,bycontrast,incontrolsocieties‘thekeythingisnolongerasignatureornumberbutacode:codesarepasswords,whereasdisciplinarysocietiesareruled...byprecepts.’[67]Heobservesthat‘thedigitallanguageofcontrolismadeupofcodesindicatingwhetheraccesstosomeinformationshouldbeallowedordenied.’[68]ForDeleuze,controlsocietiesfunctionwithanewgenerationofmachinesandwithinformationtechnologyandcomputers.Forcontrolsocieties,‘thepassivedangerisnoiseandtheactive[dangersare]piracyandviralcontamination.

Butthefigureofcyberspaceisalsoabsentincitizenship

Civic hackathons have been hotly debated in recent years. Critical studies scholars have lambasted civic hackathons for aligning with middle-class citizenship(Irani, 2015)and co-opting participant labor (Gregg, 2014a). Silicon Valley is often the fait accompliin these perspectives, bringing a flawed ideology that seduces organizers and participants into transposing technological language onto civic issues (Also see: Barbrook & Cameron, 1996; Morozov, 2013). In this paper I refer to this perspective as an “imposed civic ideology.” The second perspective comes from design scholars interested in material participation (Marres, 2012) as cohering publics to work on particular social issues. Lodato and DiSalvo (2016) suggested that civic hackathons served two purposes. First, they help people think through civic issues using props — “objects, services, and systems that engage with issues” (p. 16). Second, they cohere ephemeral proto-publics for short-term engagement on issues of public concern. As they summarized, "what is important is not the inventiveness of a particular prototype product or service, but rather, how the event fosters opportunities for collaborative or collective issue articulation" (p. 15). They drew attention to how outcomes of civic hackathons may more likely be social and cultural than functional material objects. I refer to this design perspective as an “emergent civic subjectivity.”

The baroque succeeded because it expressed something all Latin American people (Indians, Africans, mestizos, and even sons and daughters of Spaniards born on the con-tinent) had in common: the rejection of the domineering and distant center. Carpentier (1995) explains that to understand “Why is Latin America the chosen territory of the baroque?” we must look at the people and processes that allowed them to finally own the continent: “Because all symbiosis, all mestisaje engenders the baroque. The American baroque develops [...] with the self-awareness of the American man [...] the awareness of being Other, of being new, of being symbiotic, of being a criollo” (p

Surman and Reilly (2003) focus on appropriation of networked technologies in a strategically, politically, and creatively innovative manner oriented toward social change. In this context of advocacy, effective technology appropriation includes strategic Internet use for collaboration, publishing, mobilization, and observation. Here, the delineation between the use and appropriation occurs when technology is adapted to reflect goals and culture. Camacho (2001) describes appropriation by civil society organizations at the pinnacle of a technology use ladder. In the middle of the ladder, organizations focus on adoption of conventional technology. Toward the bottom, organizations and individuals with constrained access or slow adoption rates lag behind and seek access to technology. At the pinnacle, however, pioneers and activists appropriate technology to promote causes, for instance, creating flash mobs through mass text messaging to instantaneously organize large groups of people for social protest

Civic hackers might be most appropriately described as utopian realists (Giddens, 1990: 154), a term Giddens employed to capture how assuaging negative consequences in a risk society required retaining Marx’s concern of connecting social change to insti-tutional possibilities while leaving behind his formulation of history as determining and reliance on the proletariat as change agents. He positioned utopian realists as sensitive to social change, capable of creating positive models of society, and connecting with life politics.

That “hackers” can model beneficial process disrupts the often presumed subversive nature of hacking as much as it does easy assumptions about a Foucaultian notion of governmentality. Prototypes act as working evidence to lobby for changing government process, particularly those that improve digital infrastructure or direct communication with citizens. The capa-bility of code to act as a persuasive argument has long been noted, and modeling can produce charged debates about the very meaning of “civic.”

The most popular apps to date have been highly instrumental ways to request services to fix city infrastructure, such as SeeClickFix, a platform that lets residents take pictures of issues that need repair, that are delivered to the appropriate city department as an actionable item. We might think of this as a base-level civic act similar to picking litter off the ground or paint-ing over graffiti. Other activities are thicker modes of participation by generating data or metadata. The primary effort of the 2014 CodeAcross effort was to map exist-ing sources of open data. The leader of the event, D.W. Ferrell, described “our role as citizens is to complement” efforts by the government and organizations such as CfA. Contributing to data repositories served purposes for multiple stakeholders:

dis-putes over community as a particular category threatens to distract from a general focus on solidarity by activating “social bases of discursive publics that engage peo-ple across lines of basic difference in collective identities” (p. 374). A mutable, popu-larized hacker identity may have this potential, capable of processing and interpreting abstract systems of regulation.

Data activism and advocacy ranges from civic engagement (Putnam, 2001) to more oppositional activism (Jordan, 2001). In this sense, it is a spe-cific association of technologically mediated participation with particular political goals (Lievrouw, 2011) resulting in a wide range of tactics. Although open government data is still evolving and is constrained by predictions for economic growth and self-regulation, I argue it enables civic hackers to participate in civic data politics. This is particularly important because data-driven environment is often distanced from pro-viding individuals a sense of agency to change their conditions (Couldry and Powell, 2014). Data activism and advocacy can take place through organizing on related top-ics, online through mediated data repositories such as Github, and in-person events such as hackathons.

First, FOIA provided accessible tools to put abstract ideas into practice. Everyday citizens started to attach various political notions to these activities. Second, information flowed into a journalistic ecosystem that was prepared to process and interpret it for everyday citizens. Information obtained through FOIA was being interpreted in stories that changed public opinion (Leff etal., 1986). Third, ability for individuals to request information led to alternate uses for activ-ists, public interest groups, and non-profit organizations.

Yet, the natural equating of “openness” or government transparency (Hood and Heald, 2006) with accountability increasingly became dubious (Tkacz, 2012). The move to “open data” was often an imperative that didn’t make clear where the levers were for social change that benefited citizens (Lessig, 2009). Still, I argue that civic hackers are often uniquely positioned to act on issues of public concern; they are in touch with local communities, with technical skills and, in many cases, institutional and legal literacies. I conclude by connecting the open data movement with a specific set of political tactics—requesting, digesting, contributing, modeling, and contesting data.

Civic hacking can broadly be described as a form of alternative/activist media that “employ or modify the communication artifacts, practices, and social arrangements of new information and communication technologies to challenge or alter dominant, expected, or accepted ways of doing society, culture, and politics” (Lievrouw, 2011: 19). Ample research has considered how changes in technology and access have created “an environment for politics that is increasingly information-rich and communication-inten-sive” (Bimber, 2001). Earl and Kimport (2011) argue that such digital activism draws attention to modes of protest—“digital repertoires of contention” (p. 180)—more than formalized political movements

Organizations such as Code for America (CfA) rallied support by positioning civic hacking as a mode of direct partici-pation in improving structures of governance. However, critics objected to the involve-ment of corporations in civic hacking as well as their dubious political alignment and non-grassroots origins. Critical historian Evgeny Morozov (2013a) suggested that “civic hacker” is an apolitical category imposed by ideologies of “scientism” emanating from Silicon Valley. Tom Slee (2012) similarly described the open data movement as co-opted and neoliberalist.

Successive waves of activists saw the Internet as a tool for transparency. The framing of openness shifted in meaning from information to data, weakening of mechanisms for accountability even as it opened up new forms of political participation. Drawing on a year of interviews and participant observation, I suggest civic data hacking can be framed as a form of data activism and advocacy: requesting, digesting, contributing to, modeling, and contesting data

That hackers are created, not born, is hardly a new claim. In Coding Freedom Gabriella Coleman described how an open-source hackers’ identity emerged from a fervent brew of digital connectivity, technological concepts, and shared work (Coleman, 2012). Political awareness was connected to liberalism through open-source and code over time. Put simply, being a hacker is a trajectory with multiple points of origin and destinations. Neither is suggesting that hackers are ordinary meant to discard a concern with exceptional hackers. We should be concerned with the Chelsea Mannings and Edward Snowdens of the world, and the causes they have championed.

Readers are thus encouraged to examine and critique the model. If they disagree, they can modify it into a competing model with their own preferred assumptions, and use it to argue for their position. Model-driven material can be used as grounds for an informed debate about assumptions and tradeoffs. Modeling leads naturally from the particular to the general. Instead of seeing an individual proposal as “right or wrong”, “bad or good”, people can see it as one point in a large space of possibilities. By exploring the model, they come to understand the landscape of that space, and are in a position to invent better ideas for all the proposals to come. Model-driven material can serve as a kind of enhanced imagination.

This is aimed at people in the tech industry, and is more about what you can do with your career than at a hackathon. I’m not going to discuss policy and regulation, although they’re no less important than technological innovation. A good way to think about it, via Saul Griffith, is that it’s the role of technologists to create options for policy-makers.