In Cooking Data Crystal Biruk offers an ethnographic account of research into the demographics of HIV and AIDS in Malawi to rethink how quantitative health data is produced. While research practices are often understood within a clean/dirty binary, Biruk shows how data is never clean; rather, it is always "cooked" during its production and inevitably entangled with the lives of those who produce it. Examining how the relationships among fieldworkers, supervisors, respondents, and foreign demographers shape data, Biruk demonstrates how units of information--such as survey questions and...

In Cooking Data Crystal Biruk offers an ethnographic account of research into the demographics of HIV and AIDS in Malawi to rethink how quantitative health data is produced. While research practices are often understood within a clean/dirty binary, Biruk shows how data is never clean; rather, it is always "cooked" during its production and inevitably entangled with the lives of those who produce it. Examining how the relationships among fieldworkers, supervisors, respondents, and foreign demographers shape data, Biruk demonstrates how units of information--such as survey questions and...