Participatory Science for Data Feminism: Application of an original feminist framework for assessing participatory datasets in urban planning decision-making
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Khorashahi, Yasamin
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Abstract
The purpose of this study is to characterize participatory data science as an effective feminist framework for urban planning decision-making and assess its efficacy in achieving planning outcomes through a climate-oriented case study (UrbanHeatATL) in the Atlanta context. Cities are trending towards rapid digitization, and scholarship on Big and small data suggests that emerging methods of data collection and implementation are inherently biased because they disassemble individual identities into single-dimensional data points. Feminist epistemology suggests that meeting communities where they are when making policy decisions through practices such as participatory data collection and governance is an effective way to reduce bias against marginalized individuals and their communities. The UrbanHeatATL case is assessed against an original feminist framework for assessment of participatory science, the Participatory Science for Data Feminism (PSDF) framework. The PSDF framework has three dimensions: 1) participatory metadata, which addresses question of who is participating in data collection, how data are being collected, and who these data will represent; 2) data for power/data for liberation seeks to characterize why data are being collected and what stories are being told by the data; and 3) efficacy in planning outcomes is to assess whether these data are being collected as a means for implementation of plans and policy to lead to more equitable outcomes for marginalized communities. The project followed data feminism principles of data collection and told a compelling narrative about heat-vulnerable communities, but gaps remain in translating datasets into equitable planning and policy outcomes. Steps need to be taken by planning decision-makers and researchers to better integrate community participation into data collection by making technology more accessible. Researchers must also work directly with planning decision-makers before, during, and after the data collection process to determine a path forward for policy and planning outcomes.
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2023-07-31
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