A visiting researcher at IQS in Barcelona, Asst. prof. Nataša Gregorič Bon gave a research seminar as part of the Horizon Europe Project PoPMeD-SuSDeV.

In today's world of digitalisation and evolving technology, big data is becoming an important asset and often a tool for various purposes. But what does this big data mean if it lacks social and cultural context? How is it interpreted when it is coupled and entangled with the thick data of ethnographic research?

As part of my second secondment at IQS in Barcelona, I gave a seminar entitled “Intersecting Big and Thick Data in Environmental Studies: Towards Sustainability and Well-being” on 18 October 2024. The talk was part of the dissemination within the PoPMeD-SuSDeV project and delved into the advantages and disadvantages of the cross-disciplinary research, which is also applied in our project.

The presentation focussed on the intersection of remote sensing methods (big data) and ethnographic methods (thick data) to study the Vjosa riverine environment in Albania. The Vjosa River, which was declared a National Park and protected area in March 2023, has been the subject of debates about infrastructural interventions, such as the construction of hydropower plants and an international airport, over the past decade. Drawing on my long-term ethnographic research on the Vjosa River and in collaboration with my remote sensing colleagues, I explained how social practices and ways of being in the world are in close interplay with geophysical features and other physical and ecological characteristics in southern Albania. Our intersectional research explored how the physical (e.g. erosion, deforestation), social and cultural features and infrastructural interventions (e.g. hydropower plants, irrigation canals) are embedded in people's lives and how people's practices are spatialised in the landscape. By delving into delicate intersection of big/remote and thick data, the presentation pointed out the advantages and challenges of this intersection and sought to rethink current methodological approaches to the study of riverine environments.

Text and photos by Nataša Gregorič Bon