Moving Towards Epistemic Autonomy: A Paradigm Shift for Centering Participant Knowledge
Fuente:
arXiv
Saved in:
| Main Authors: | , , |
|---|---|
| Format: | Preprint |
| Published: |
2025
|
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | |
| Tags: |
Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
|
| _version_ | 1866909469462495232 |
|---|---|
| author | Ajmani, Leah Hope Bhatt, Talia Devito, Michael Ann |
| author_facet | Ajmani, Leah Hope Bhatt, Talia Devito, Michael Ann |
| contents | Justice, epistemology, and marginalization are rich areas of study in HCI. And yet, we repeatedly find platforms and algorithms that push communities further into the margins. In this paper, we propose epistemic autonomy -- one's ability to govern knowledge about themselves -- as a necessary HCI paradigm for working with marginalized communities. We establish epistemic autonomy by applying the transfeminine principle of autonomy to the problem of epistemic injustice. To articulate the harm of violating one's epistemic autonomy, we present six stories from two trans women: (1) a transfem online administrator and (2) a transfem researcher. We then synthesize our definition of epistemic autonomy in research into a research paradigm. Finally, we present two variants of common HCI methods, autoethnography and asynchronous remote communities, that stem from these beliefs. We discuss how CHI is uniquely situated to champion this paradigm and, thereby, the epistemic autonomy of our research participants. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2501_14648 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2025 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | Moving Towards Epistemic Autonomy: A Paradigm Shift for Centering Participant Knowledge Ajmani, Leah Hope Bhatt, Talia Devito, Michael Ann Human-Computer Interaction Justice, epistemology, and marginalization are rich areas of study in HCI. And yet, we repeatedly find platforms and algorithms that push communities further into the margins. In this paper, we propose epistemic autonomy -- one's ability to govern knowledge about themselves -- as a necessary HCI paradigm for working with marginalized communities. We establish epistemic autonomy by applying the transfeminine principle of autonomy to the problem of epistemic injustice. To articulate the harm of violating one's epistemic autonomy, we present six stories from two trans women: (1) a transfem online administrator and (2) a transfem researcher. We then synthesize our definition of epistemic autonomy in research into a research paradigm. Finally, we present two variants of common HCI methods, autoethnography and asynchronous remote communities, that stem from these beliefs. We discuss how CHI is uniquely situated to champion this paradigm and, thereby, the epistemic autonomy of our research participants. |
| title | Moving Towards Epistemic Autonomy: A Paradigm Shift for Centering Participant Knowledge |
| topic | Human-Computer Interaction |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.14648 |