Call for abstracts for critical data studies / human contexts and ethics track at the 2018 4S Annual Conference
Published:
4S 2018 Open Panel 101: Critical Data Studies: Human Contexts and Ethics
We’re pleased to be organizing one of the open panels at the 2018 Meeting of the Society for the Social Studies of Science (4S). Please submit an abstract!
Deadline: 1 February 2018, submit 250 word abstract here
Conference: 29 August - 1 September 2018, Sydney, Australia
Convenors:
- Laura Norén (New York University)
- Charlotte Cabasse-Mazel (University of California, Berkeley)
- Stuart Geiger (UC-Berkeley)
Call for abstracts
In this continuation of the previous Critical Data Studies / Studying Data Critically tracks at 4S (see also Dalton and Thatcher 2014; Iliadis and Russo 2016), we invite papers that address the organizational, social, cultural, ethical, and otherwise human impacts of data science applications in areas like science, education, consumer products, labor and workforce management, bureaucracies and administration, media platforms, or families. Ethnographies, case studies, and theoretical works that take a situated approach to data work, practices, politics, and/or infrastructures in specific contexts are all welcome.
Datafication and autonomous computational systems and practices are producing significant transformations in our analytical and deontological framework, sometimes with objectionable consequences (O’Neill 2016; Barocas, Bradley, Honovar, and Provost 2017). Whether we’re looking at the ways in which new artefacts are constructed or at their social consequences, questions of value and valuation or objectivity and operationalization are indissociable from the processes of innovation and the principles of fairness, reliability, usability, privacy, social justice, and harm avoidance (Campolo, Sanfilippo, Whittaker, and Crawford, 2017).
By reflecting on situated unintended and objectionable consequences, we will gather a collection of works that illuminate one or several aspects of the unfolding of controversies and ethical challenges posed by these new systems and practices. We’re specifically interested in pieces that provide innovative theoretical insights about ethics and controversies, fieldwork, and reflexivity about the researcher’s positionality and her own ethical practices. We also encourage practitioners and educators who have worked to infuse ethical questions and concerns into a workflow, pedagogical strategy, collaboration, or intervention.