Daniela Sant'Ana

PhD candidate, University of Oslo

Sant'Ana is a Doctoral Fellow at the TIK Centre for Technology, Innovation and Culture, at the University of Oslo (UiO). Sant'Ana draws upon Anthropology of data, Science and Technology Studies, and Social Anthropology in order to interrogate how new digital technologies and methods for monitoring and studying nature change and maintain more-than-human socialities. She holds a major in Social Sciences (including Political Science, Anthropology and Sociology), and two Master's degrees, one in Sociology and another in Environment and Development.

Tell us about your project!

My project describes and compares data practices in research about reindeer habitat and sub-populations across sites. I examine the contexts in which digital monitoring of reindeer movement is infrastructured and its implications in the encounter of biodiversity conservation, experimental research, traditional reindeer husbandry, wilderness tourism, and green energy development. I ask: To what extent is the digitisation of reindeer data able to context and imagine Arctic socialities anew? My research builds on qualitative methods consisting mainly of interviews, collaborative ethnography between reindeer databases, field, and research laboratories, and of practice-oriented analysis of scientific papers, impact assessments and official documents.

“ I examine the contexts in which digital monitoring of reindeer movement is infrastructured and its implications in the encounter of biodiversity conservation, experimental research, traditional reindeer husbandry, wilderness tourism, and green energy development.”

— Daniela Sant'Ana on her research project “Reindeer as Data”