Informal Human Settlements, Big Data And Social Theory In Morocco (Workshop Paper)

The paper adopts Actor-Network Theory (ANT) endorsed by sociologists Callon, Mitchell and Latour to reveal how the Chicago School of economics has utilized big data and policies based on abstract quantitative analysis of big data to `measure' the livelihood of urban poor who remain outside the regulation of modern state authority in post-colonial nations. Specifically, by studying contemporary Morocco and the policies targeting eradication of informal human settlements to eradicate poverty in urban cities, the paper utilizes Callon and Mitchell's theory of Economization to understand how big data plays a transforming role in framing and the politics of metrology- which have become critical for the re-alignment of state and market power. International organizations and Hayekian economic experts have relied on abstract big data analysis to import results from one country to another, thereby producing `policy experts' on poverty and development with little recognition of the contingent socioeconomic realities of countries in the global south. Consequently, the paper dwells on three of the given topics for the workshop covering socioeconomic implications of big data, the consequent urban planning focused on urban poor's living settlements and the role of academic economics and the free market in re-instating state power.