Data, famously, just wants to be free. But it might also be said that data just wants to dance. Digital data is notably social at heart. Its binary form enables it to mingle easily with other digital data. Machine reading technologies mean that data can communicate directly with other data, bypassing human mediation. This potential for social capability has given rise to data management techniques that favour comparison, correlation and conformity and are built on value systems that prioritise precision, simplification and efficiency.

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Original publication: Verhoeven, Deb. "Changing the Beat: From Interoperability to Adaptability." Open Scholarship Policy Observatory, 15 Apr. 2022, https://ospolicyobservatory.uvic.ca/changing-the-beat/.

This material has been re-published in an unmodified form on the Canadian HSS Commons with the permission of the Open Scholarship Policy Observatory. All materials are published under a Creative Commons ShareAlike 4.0 International license (CC BY-SA 4.0 DEED). The full license description can be found on https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/.