CAREER: Community Organizing for Datafied Worlds

University Of California-Irvine, Irvine CA

Investigators

Abstract

This project describes how professional community organizers use data to pursue grassroots-led projects and to influence broader uses of data-intensive technologies, particularly as such uses concern provision of public services. Every aspect of this project is deeply informed with an ethos of reciprocity, one that recognizes that community members already have important expertise and that academic knowledge should be an asset to community-based solutions. This project promises at least five outcomes in pursuit of this ethos: (1) meaningful incorporation of communities in research design, implementation, and communication of research on data and social consequence of data-intensive technologies; (2) incorporation of community voices in human-computer interaction and social computing research; (3) inclusion of students in research and teaching; (4) outreach activities to promote data literacy in working class communities; and (5) contributions toward community-informed K-12 data science education, piloted and tested in schools. The project is organized into four parts: (1) research on data practices of community organizers engaged with technology, (2) co-design with community organizers as partners, (3) construction of a platform to support academic research on community organizers, and (4) outreach to promote data literacy. This project deploys qualitative methods to greatly expand ongoing research into data practices and datafication by asking how community organizers address the challenges of data-intensive technologies (e.g., artificial intelligence, machine learning, and predictive analytics) already deployed in their communities. This project also includes a series of workshops focused on datafication and communities. In addition, the results of ongoing participatory design will shape a community action case study platform, a tool to help academic researchers more equitably engage with communities and learn about ongoing challenges posed by data-intensive technologies. Finally, education and outreach projects will contribute to community-informed data literacy in sites where data-intensive technologies have produced burden. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.