The iconic proposition of ‘just good enough data’ challenges the assumption that citizen-generated environmental measurements matter only when they approximate regulatory-grade science. Working with air-pollution sensing around hydraulic-fracturing sites, Gabrys, Pritchard and Barratt show that imperfect, situated datasets can still generate politically and experientially significant forms of evidence. Their contribution is to move data citizenship away from a narrow democratization-of-sensing model toward the practical formation of publics through measurement, interpretation and narrative. The methodological operation is participatory and experimental: low-cost sensors, situated monitoring, data stories and collective interpretation are assembled as a heterogeneous evidential practice rather than purified into a single technical benchmark. The paper bridges STS, critical data studies and environmental justice by showing that data quality is inseparable from purpose, context and political use. Evidence is not weakened by situatedness; rather, situatedness defines the conditions under which particular measurements become actionable and publicly meaningful.
URBANISM MEETS ART