Anthony Ryan Hatch
This project emerged as the COVID-19 pandemic was still in its early phase (March-May 2020). That summer, I joined several other sociologists in writing a public reflection intended for the website of the Section of Science, Knowledge, and Technology (SKAT) of the American Sociological Association. This short essay, “Two Meditations in Corontatime,” provided a point of entry for a more extended critical assessment of how racial health disparities data are mobilized in public health crises. I undertook that assessment as part of my 2022 Robin M. Williams Distinguished Lecture in the Eastern Sociological Association and a special issue of Big Data & Society on “Data, Power, and Racial Formation,” guest edited by Kate Henne and Renee Shelby. Xia Xiang and Sarah Asiedu provided research assistance on this manuscript in Black Box Labs’ first year.
