{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,4,29]],"date-time":"2026-04-29T09:32:12Z","timestamp":1777455132786,"version":"3.51.4"},"reference-count":33,"publisher":"SAGE Publications","issue":"2","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2021,7,1]],"date-time":"2021-07-01T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1625097600000},"content-version":"unspecified","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nc\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"name":"Wellcome Trust collaborative award","award":["205456\/Z\/16\/Z"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["205456\/Z\/16\/Z"]}]},{"name":"ARC Centre of Excellence on Automated Decision-Making & Society"}],"content-domain":{"domain":["journals.sagepub.com"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["Big Data &amp; Society"],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2021,7]]},"abstract":"<jats:p>This commentary uses Paul Gilroy\u2019s controversial claim that new technoscientific processes are instituting an \u2018end to race\u2019 as a provocation to discuss the epistemological transformation of race in algorithmic culture. We situate Gilroy\u2019s provocation within the context of an abolitionist agenda against racial-thinking, underscoring the relationship between his post-race polemic and a post-visual discourse. We then discuss the challenges of studying race within regimes of computation, which rely on structures that are, for the most part, opaque; in particular, modes of classification that operate through proxies and abstractions and that figure racialized bodies not as single, coherent subjects, but as shifting clusters of data. We argue that in this new regime, race emerges as an epiphenomenon of processes of classifying and sorting \u2013 what we call \u2018racial formations as data formations\u2019. This discussion is significant because it raises new theoretical, methodological and political questions for scholars of media and critical algorithmic studies. It asks: how are we supposed to think, to identify and to confront race and racialisation when they vanish into algorithmic systems that are beyond our perception? What becomes of racial formations in post-visual regimes?<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1177\/20539517211046377","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2021,9,30]],"date-time":"2021-09-30T06:45:27Z","timestamp":1632984327000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1177\/sage-journals-update-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":32,"title":["Racial formations as data formations"],"prefix":"10.1177","volume":"8","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-2013-3359","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Thao","family":"Phan","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"ARC Centre of Excellence on Automated Decision-Making and Society and the Emerging Technologies Research Lab, Monash University, Caulfield East, Australia"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-4515-5896","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Scott","family":"Wark","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Research Associate, People Like You, Centre for Interdisciplinary Methodologies, Warwick University, Coventry, UK"}]}],"member":"179","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2021,9,30]]},"reference":[{"key":"bibr1-20539517211046377","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1177\/0263276409350361"},{"key":"bibr2-20539517211046377","volume-title":"Cloud Ethics: Algorithms and the Attributes of Ourselves and Others","author":"Amoore L","year":"2020"},{"key":"bibr3-20539517211046377","unstructured":"Angwin J, Parris T, Jr, (2016) Facebook Lets Advertisers Exclude Users by Race, ProPublica, viewed 20 September 2020, https:\/\/www.propublica.org\/article\/facebook-lets-advertisers-exclude-users-by-race."},{"key":"bibr4-20539517211046377","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1215\/9781478004455"},{"key":"bibr5-20539517211046377","first-page":"671","volume":"104","author":"Barocas S","year":"2016","journal-title":"California Law Review"},{"key":"bibr6-20539517211046377","volume-title":"Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code","author":"Benjamin R","year":"2019","edition":"1"},{"key":"bibr7-20539517211046377","first-page":"1","volume":"81","author":"Buolamwini J","year":"2018","journal-title":"Proceedings of Machine Learning Research"},{"key":"bibr8-20539517211046377","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1215\/9780822375302"},{"key":"bibr33-20539517211046377","first-page":"1721","volume-title":"International Journal of Communication","volume":"10","author":"Cheney-Lippold J","year":"2016"},{"key":"bibr9-20539517211046377","first-page":"38","volume-title":"Race After the Internet","author":"Chun WHK","year":"2013"},{"key":"bibr10-20539517211046377","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1215\/02705346-2008-018"},{"key":"bibr11-20539517211046377","volume-title":"Automating Inequality: How High-Tech Tools Profile, Police, and Punish the Poor","author":"Eubanks V","year":"2018"},{"key":"bibr12-20539517211046377","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1080\/014198798329676"},{"key":"bibr13-20539517211046377","volume-title":"Against Race: Imagining Political Culture Beyond the Color Line","author":"Gilroy P","year":"2002","edition":"1"},{"key":"bibr14-20539517211046377","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1162\/0011526053124460"},{"key":"bibr15-20539517211046377","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.18574\/nyu\/9781479860234.001.0001"},{"key":"bibr16-20539517211046377","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.7312\/kahn16298"},{"key":"bibr17-20539517211046377","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","DOI":"10.1515\/9780804764964","volume-title":"Dislocating the Color Line: Identity, Hybridity, and Singularity in African-American Narrative","author":"Kawash S","year":"1997","edition":"1"},{"issue":"6","key":"bibr18-20539517211046377","first-page":"18","volume":"37","author":"Kowal E","year":"2016","journal-title":"Australasian Science"},{"key":"bibr19-20539517211046377","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.7551\/mitpress\/10993.003.0013"},{"key":"bibr20-20539517211046377","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.7551\/mitpress\/10302.001.0001"},{"key":"bibr21-20539517211046377","volume-title":"Digitizing Race: Visual Cultures of the Internet","author":"Nakamura L","year":"2007"},{"key":"bibr22-20539517211046377","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.18574\/nyu\/9781479833641.001.0001"},{"key":"bibr23-20539517211046377","volume-title":"Racial Formation in the United States","author":"Omi M","year":"2015"},{"key":"bibr24-20539517211046377","unstructured":"Phan & Wark. 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