A canon is a blunt force instrument: Data science, canons, and generative frictions

National and university science policy in the Netherlands tends to prioritize in various ways computer and computational sciences over the social sciences and humanities. We feel that the oppositions that are produced and reinforced through such policies are both false and unproductive. As scholars working on data and technology-related issues at three Dutch universities, we initiated a conversation about what it would mean to think and work together. Taking our disciplinary background and research fields as starting points, we asked how these produced different conceptions of the same terms, how these differences could be generative or problematic, and how our disciplines become invested in a particular interpretation? The resulting discussions examine the productive and limiting characteristics of scientific disciplines, the boundary objects that allow us to work together, the influence of industry on our collaborations, and the related need to think beyond disciplinary collaborations and interactions.