The limits of spatial data? Sense-making within the development and different uses of Finnish urban-rural classification

Highlights •Sense-making within spatial data practices is studied. •A methodology for classifying an urban-rural continuum is analysed as a case study. •Uses of the classification are difficult, yet important to anticipate. •Communicative and social considerations cannot be disentangled from information systems. Abstract In order to formulate relevant understanding of key sustainability challenges, evidence-based decision-making relies on comprehensive data. While the complexity of producing and processing spatial data and the potential for biases are well recognised, the social process of making sense of data and its implications for societal uses is less analysed. In this article, insights of critical data studies are applied to study the production of, as well as uses and misuses of, the Finnish urban-rural classification. The classification structures Finland into three urban classes and four rural classes and offers an alternative to classifications that utilise administrative, municipal, and regional boundaries. The classification acts as a boundary object, functioning as a common reference for parties with varying information needs and interests. Using document analysis, as well as an insider action research methodology and our own experiences as data producers, this article aims to understand the processes of sense-making of data in the context of urban-rural classification and identify ways of improving related information systems and data practices. Intended and realised uses of the classification are analysed in order to identify different ways in which data producers and users make sense of data and justify the utilisation of the classification. The process of sense-making starts from the planning of data production and shapes how data and eventually information system are formulated throughout the data cycle. Communication about the limitations of the classification remains an issue and highlights the nature of sense-making as a collective process wherein users are actively shaping data practices as they translate information systems into their own contexts. This also draws attention to the nature of information systems as inherently unneutral, inevitably affected by negotiations shaped by the various information needs.