Black Feminist Epistemology as a Critical Framework for Equitable Design

Key Insights

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  Technology, including AI like facial recognition, can unintentionally perpetuate racial profiling and oppression of historically excluded groups.

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  Researchers hold significant power to frame questions, select participants, and design studies that can either exclude or empower marginalized communities.

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  Providing multiple communication modes in presentations benefits everyone, exemplified by including visuals and oral information for visually or hearing-impaired audiences.

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  Black feminist epistemology centers Black women's lived experiences as valid knowledge and frames them as agents of change rather than victims.

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  Intersectionality reveals how overlapping identities like race, gender, class, nationality, and ability shape complex, unique experiences of oppression.

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  Black women are active but underrepresented members in gaming culture and game production, often invisible in research and industry leadership roles.

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  Black women’s gameplay habits tend to be casual and episodic, favoring mobile and puzzle games accessed during brief periods of downtime.

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  Empowering Black women as game producers rather than mere consumers disrupts existing industry power structures and fosters authentic representation.

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  Customizable avatars with diverse skin tones and features enable self-definition, combating harmful stereotypes and supporting varied identities within Black communities.

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  Black feminist epistemology guides qualitative data analysis by providing principles to interpret interactions, such as identifying 'other mothering' in AI usage.

Notable Quotes