Abstract Citizen-generated data (CGD) is increasingly embraced as a strategy for filling data gaps to achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including SDG 5, Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women and Girls. Existing frameworks to guide the design and use of CGD, however, do not reflect the unique considerations of CGD projects addressing issues of gender inequality. Answering recent calls for study of “data practices,” this article analyzes common CGD principles through findings from an action research project to address gender-based violence at the Colombia–Venezuela border. We suggest that while existing frameworks provide generative pathways forward, several principles around which consensus appears to be emerging are too rigid or insufficiently nuanced to account for the dynamics that many gender-focused CGD projects confront. These include dynamics such as physical security, the role of emotion in shaping project implementation, unequal access to resources, and political will. We suggest that this rigidity truncates the utility of these frameworks for CGD actors navigating highly sensitive issues in risky environments where serious violations of women’s human rights are taking place—and where the generation of gender data is one of several motivating factors for the work being done. This article reads gender into these frameworks to broaden the range of sustainable development issues for which CGD can help catalyze progress.
Cookson et al. (Thu,) studied this question.