The CODE∧SHIFT model: a data justice framework for collective impact and social transformation

In this article, we present an alternative framework that resists hegemonic social sciences within data-driven communication theorizing through a culture-centered approach (CCA). Building on the CCA in co-creating voice infrastructures at the margins, we argue that data justice requires transforming interpretive data framings, disrupting the hegemonic registers of knowledge production constituted around data, and working with/through data to challenge the structures of capitalism and colonialism that circulate the practices of exploitation and extraction. We build upon community-engaged projects emergent from the CCA in/with/from the Global South to propose the CODE<^>SHIFT Model, grounded in principles of equity-mindedness, collective impact, purposiveness, and systemic change. It highlights what data justice looks like in various stages of community-led transformation: identifying pressing social problems; bridging cross-sector coalitions and partnerships; organizing for collective impact activities; and sustaining capacity building. We reframe data as pluriversal, embodied, sacred, sovereign, disruptive, solidarity, and impossibility.

Automated summary

This article presents an alternative framework to resist hegemonic social sciences in data-driven communication theorizing through a culture-centered approach (CCA). It argues for data justice by transforming interpretive data framings, disrupting dominant knowledge production around data, and challenging capitalist and colonialist structures through data. The article proposes the CODE<^>SHIFT Model, based on community-engaged projects in the Global South, which highlights the importance of data justice in different stages of community-led transformation.