All Data Are Local

What does it mean to say, “All data are local”? Before proceeding to the main cases of the book, let me further unpack the title claim. It relies on two concepts, data and local, that are pervasive in contemporary popular and academic writing, but less commonly seen together. In order to explain their pairing for the purposes of my argument, I need to address a number of misconceptions about each term independently. In the process, I will take the opportunity to acknowledge the contributions of other scholars who have laid the substantial foundations for this work. Let me turn to conceptions of data first.