DAIEM: Decolonizing Algorithm's Role as a Team-member in Informal E-market

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Rahman, ATM Mizanur, Haque, Md Romael, Sultana, Sharifa
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Rahman, ATM Mizanur
Haque, Md Romael
Sultana, Sharifa
author_facet Rahman, ATM Mizanur
Haque, Md Romael
Sultana, Sharifa
contents In Bangladesh's rapidly expanding informal e-market, small-scale sellers use social media platforms like Facebook to run businesses outside formal infrastructures. These sellers rely heavily on platform algorithms, not just for visibility, but as active collaborators in business operations. Drawing on 37 in-depth interviews with sellers, buyers, and stakeholders, this paper examines how people in informal e-markets perceive and interact with the algorithm as a "team member" that performs sales, marketing, and customer engagement tasks. We found that while sellers and local tech entrepreneurs are interested in developing services to support this industry, buyers and investors place greater trust in human interactions. This reveals a postcolonial tension involving cultural values, local tech education and training, and a mismatch between the global and Bangladeshi e-market growth. We expand this discussion using perspectives from HCI, political design, and AI design. We also support the decoloniality movement in informal e-markets by proposing the DAIEM framework, which includes six components: autonomy and agency; resistance; locality, culture, and history; rationality; materiality; and advocacy. DAIEM serves as both a guideline for algorithm design and an analytical tool.
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id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2506_12910
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publishDate 2025
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spellingShingle DAIEM: Decolonizing Algorithm's Role as a Team-member in Informal E-market
Rahman, ATM Mizanur
Haque, Md Romael
Sultana, Sharifa
Human-Computer Interaction
In Bangladesh's rapidly expanding informal e-market, small-scale sellers use social media platforms like Facebook to run businesses outside formal infrastructures. These sellers rely heavily on platform algorithms, not just for visibility, but as active collaborators in business operations. Drawing on 37 in-depth interviews with sellers, buyers, and stakeholders, this paper examines how people in informal e-markets perceive and interact with the algorithm as a "team member" that performs sales, marketing, and customer engagement tasks. We found that while sellers and local tech entrepreneurs are interested in developing services to support this industry, buyers and investors place greater trust in human interactions. This reveals a postcolonial tension involving cultural values, local tech education and training, and a mismatch between the global and Bangladeshi e-market growth. We expand this discussion using perspectives from HCI, political design, and AI design. We also support the decoloniality movement in informal e-markets by proposing the DAIEM framework, which includes six components: autonomy and agency; resistance; locality, culture, and history; rationality; materiality; and advocacy. DAIEM serves as both a guideline for algorithm design and an analytical tool.
title DAIEM: Decolonizing Algorithm's Role as a Team-member in Informal E-market
topic Human-Computer Interaction
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.12910