Tim Schütz is a PhD candidate in the Department of Anthropology at the University of California, Irvine. His research and teaching focus on ways data  is mobilized for different purposes in different settings—across scientific fields, as evidence in legal cases, and as shared points of references in social movements.

Schütz studies how data practices change, the infrastructures and ideologies that shape them, and the contexts in which data gains or loses analytic and political power. Schütz  both studies and helps build public knowledge infrastructure, working with advocacy organizations, museums, public libraries, and other creative data practitioners. Recent publications include  “Archiving for the Anthropocene: Notes from the Field Campus“ (2019) and Knowledge Infrastructure and Research Agendas for Quotidian Anthropocenes: Critical localism with Planetary Scope” (2021).

Schütz‘s dissertation research includes development of the Formosa Plastics Global Archive, a collaborative, digital workspace that focuses on a large Taiwanese petrochemical company (operating in Taiwan, Vietnam, and the US Gulf Coast).  Read more about the archive here, and about an associated event here. Through his archival work, Schütz is developing a model approach for lively “archiving for the Anthropocene.” 

Schütz is a member of the Teaching Team for UCI  Anthro 25A, Environmental Injustice, a large, general education course that extends from EcoGovLab research.

Learn more about Tim Schütz here.