AR2021-Black Feminist Epistemology as a Critical Framework for Equitable Design (Yolanda Rankin, Assistant Professor at Florida State University)

—> Delighted to be with everyone to talk about how we can use black feminist epistemology for equitable design

 

 

—> We are in several crises
  • The global pandemic of Covid-19
  • Civil unrest over police-sanctioned brutality
  • Americans storming the US Capitol to stop the certification of electoral votes for an alleged “stolen” election
—> All of these have happened in the past year
—> These crises represent wicked problems, which are problems that don’t have an easy or visible solution

 

—> Wicked problems require complex approaches to solve them, so we need to use critical frameworks to help us think of solutions to solve these complex problems
—> Frameworks make salient the human condition, both the good and the bad
  • The bad are issues that reveal social inequities that are in society today
—> I will propose the question of how can “we” as researchers use Black feminist epistemology as a framework for equitable design

 

—> There are three takeaways from the Black feminist epistemology framework
—> First, we need to know how technology and innovation play in oppression of historically excluded groups
  1. Excluded groups refer to people representative of less dominant social groups like women, African-Americans, LGBTQ+ community, etc.
  2. Technology can be used to harm these groups

 

—> For example, a recent study by UCLA, examined facial recognition
  • The study found that facial recognition technology was biased towards mistakenly identifying people of color as criminals
—> This is an example of racial profiling by technology
  • As researchers, we need to be careful that our innovations don’t impact historically excluded groups

 

—> The second takeaway is recognizing our power of researchers to create equitable experience
  • We can figure out what questions to investigate, data to collect
—> For example, my presentation will break the cardinal rule of “less is more” to let people who have limited vision, receive info in multiple modes of communication such as visual and oral presentations
—> Moreover, creating equitable experiences benefits everyone
  • For example, when deaf students are part of mainstream classes, all the students learning American Sign Language boosts everyone’s English literacy

 

—> Third, making sure we as researchers do the right work for purpose of advancement, but not inflicting additional harm
—> Example of “Our Data Bodies”, an org that provides the communities in Charlotte, Detroit, and other cities with:
  • How data is collected in their communities
  • How that data is used
—> The end goal is to prevent data from being misappropriated for things like predatory lending practices

 

—> For today’s presentation focus on three key aspects
  • Overview of Black Feminist Epistemology
  • Using Black Feminist Epistemology in the context of the gameplay experience, and its impact for Black women
  • Black feminist theory as a framework for game design

 

—> Black feminist epistemology deals with Black women’s way of knowing, and positions them as agents of knowledge, change, and intellectuals
  • Shared collective thought for Black women of “outsider within” status
—> Black women are often ignored and overlooked when designing technology
  • My push is that what matters for Black women is just as important as any social group

 

—> Intersectionality illuminates the human experience, and helps us understand we are complex and multifaceted
—> Our individuality is shaped by many axes that work together and influence each other, such as gender, race, class
  • This is important for understanding black women’s experiences

 

—> Intersectionality is a way of understanding the complexity of the world, people, and the human experience
—> Idea of using lens of “race” only, like critical race theory overlooks aspects that influence individual identity, like gender discrimination, xenophobia, and  ableism
—> Intersectionality  brings to light the experiences of people to recognize experiences are different, and how power relations influence how people experience oppression

 

—> This quote by Patricia Hill Collins signifies what Black feminist thought is:
  • Black feminist thought is distinct because African-American women remain oppressed in a US context characterized by injustice

 

—> Now, let’s shift gears to how Black feminist epistemology can be applied through exploring gameplay experiences

 

—> Remember, our first takeaway was understanding how gaming plays in oppression of historically excluded groups

 

—> I’m certain you’ve played a game at least once in your life
—> Games are form of recreation, but can be used to supplement classroom instruction
  • For Kim Belair, when we look out into world or gaming sub-culture we have internal model of what gamer is
  • This model reflects more white/Asian men who live/breathe gaming

 

—> But, where are the women?
  • There are few studies of how Black women play video games
—> So I conducted study at an all female historically Black college campus, and created a game questionnaire for the purpose of one question
  • We asked to figure out gaming behaviors, practices, and trends of Black women, since they are invisible in core gaming experience
  • Then had focus group questionnaire, to figure out motivating factors for why/why not play games

 

—> Findings were that mature women had little time to play games for fun
  • They were busy with studies, work, extra-curricular
  • Played games when younger
—> Played game when bored, or episodic game play
—> Games were a social or shared activity with friends
—> No incidents of racial slurs or discrimination, which causes us to wonder why

 

—> It turns out Black women preferred mobile/puzzle games since these games are on the go, and these games are a mobile distraction for any game of choice
—> At best, these women are casual gamers, but still legitimate members of gaming subculture
—> Understand  that the type of game a person plays matters
  • If you think about the fact that mobile games play leads to a solo game experience, compared to massive online role playing games, where you are exposed to people with implicit biases
  • As a result, mobile games lead to more positive gaming experience

 

—> Now for takeaway two, we are using our power and privilege as designers, to create a level playing field where Black women are producers of games, as well as consumers

 

 

—> In industry, Black women are behind less than 6% of game titles
  • I wanted to see Black women produce the games they want to see in the world

 

—> So let’s go through the three principles in bold

 

—> The picture represents celebratory moment where women in Spelman college are celebrating accomplishments and hard work as they receive degrees in respective fields
—> Black Feminist Theory says women contributed to society in so many ways
  • At Spelman, resiliency and strength positions women as agents in fight against social injustice

 

—> We also take the time to distinguish Black feminist thought from Black feminist practice
  • Black feminist thought is knowledge of black women’s experiences, and how slavery and its consequences impacted their lives
—> Thoughts are not enough to appreciated experiences. The goal is to take knowledge people and put it into practice
  • So she allowed black women to own the design process for the proposed mobile game from end-to-end, which included:
    • Defining design elements
    • Rules
    • Character sketches and coming with game task

 

—> The context of the game that was created is as follows:
  • An avatar called Sophia guides you into making Spanish dishes, and uses Spanglish to help people learn the Spanish language
    • For example, a player sees a recipe for particular Spanish dish, and Sophia introduces the ingredients in Spanish, and then asks players for specific ingredients out of two
—> Why learn Spanish?
  • Spanish is most popular foreign language people study at Spelman
    • Spelman also has a requirement of having two year proficiency in foreign language of choice
    • So the game would help black women gain language acquisition

 

—> We also engaged players in play-testing, where they played the game and gave feedback about the prototype
  • Black women also acted as co-designers in this process

 

—> Returning to takeaway 3: We need to do the work to make sure technology does not perpetuate the oppression of historically excluded groups

 

—> Moving from black feminist thought to motivate game design, we found three key findings

 

—>  First, women revealed that it was important to accommodate intersectional game characters
  • From Jennifer, i.e. there are Black Spanish people, but who are not represented
    • Hard for her to see educational games with speakers who are also Black

 

—> From this feedback, we rethought game design to allow people to interact with intersectional game characters
—> Featured “Amara” and “Jorge” as roles to play in the educational context of nationality, gender, and identity

 

—> We then thought about how to represent the avatar
—> On screen is Sophia, the brainchild of CS major Vanessa, who modeled the character of Sophia.
—> The avatar of Sophia was created in Vanessa’s physical images, and had a light skin complexion with freckles
—> People revealed during the play-test session, that Black women with darker complexion didn’t identify Sophia as Black woman
  • Remember, Black women come in all shapes and sizes, and how they are portrayed in digital media needs to vary as well

 

—> From Melanie, a test user:
  • Advocated for self-definition as the ability to control narrative of who they are, and how they are represented

 

—> Given challenge of representation, we included a “me” maker, and gave the player ways to control how they could be represented in the game environment
—> This applied to all players

 

—> In this sweet spot of innovation, where we are accommodating everyone, that we can have transformative technology for all

 

 

—> So, what did we learn?
—> We need to work within Black communities, as they are safe spaces where people (Black women) are rendered visible and can talk about what they want to see in game design
  • They can position themselves as experts
—> Using dialogic interactions, allows women to have a testimonial authority position. Their words, and what they say matters
—> Finally, acknowledge that Black Women are not a monolithic population, with no two women being alike
  • Recognized different perspectives and opinion,
  • This is the sweet spot of innovation, so you can design technology that can benefit all

 

—> In closing here are the takeaways we have discussed above
—> I hope I have demonstrated how we can leverage Black feminist epistemology

 

—> Thank you, and I’m ready for questions

 

Q&A
  1. Any tactical advice on how to bring a black feminist epistemological framework to analysis & synthesis specifically (e.g. frameworks for qualitative data analysis)?
A: Looking at how black youth interacted with agents like Siri, Alexa
  • Asked to interact with people and researchers to analyze and framework from Black feminist epistemology
—> Do reading on your own, as there is a lot of meaty information in terms of how to operationalize
—> Make sure you know the vocabulary of BFT looks like, to make sure you can map what people are doing to aspects fo BFT
  1. How do you have a conversation with folks who try to invalidate the existence of oppression and these different experiences (sometimes they are black or minority folks themselves)? They claim it plays into “victim mentality” and that it doesn’t push folks to “do better”. It may even feel like a form of gaslighting and that they’ve bought into the supremacy story, so the conversation stops there?
A: If you read Black feminist thought work, what they point to is that it’s not about victimization at all.
  • Rather it leaves you in the place of resiliency and focuses on call to action