Questioning data and data becoming: Rhizomatic data-trail experimentations with bridge/briging

In the current presentation, we pose a series of questions and share provocations on how qualitative researchers interact with data and how data traces research possibilities. We play – follow our ambitious wonderings about data – with researchcreation possibilities to interrogate how data may become in various forms and timespaces. In our work, we depart rhizomatically from the inspiration we had during past experiences of data trails, i.e., a specific mode of thinking and doing for research-creation possibilities. These experiences with experimentation make us question research practices and the discourses around them; they invoke us to ponder a series of ethical-onto-epistemological turns with data. In this presentation, we let the concept of “bridge/bridging” help us with this pondering. Additionally, we share and create provocations about data without any ambition to solve ‘the data question”. Rather, we approach the question about data and their functions as we propose a series of wonderings and data points with the hope of inspiring colleagues to debate about data. The session is, eventually, an offer for an alternative reading of data.