Description
In recent years, an abundance of projects meant to support data advocacy have revealed new challenges for information designers. This research focuses on understanding the “epistemic barriers” that can arise within data advocacy projects, such as self-censorship, disengagement, and feelings of diminished agency among participants. We introduce an analytical framework that designers can use to identify and address such barriers. This work, based on a long-term, cross-institutional project, explores how underprivileged youth use data to advocate for their climate-threatened communities. Working with a team of researchers and educators, we developed, facilitated, and analyzed a series of collaborative map-making workshops for middle-school-aged youth. We present two epistemic barriers that emerged from our qualitative studies of the workshops: 1) uncertainty about civic knowledge, 2) ambiguity about civic roles. Our presentation will provide information designers with practical strategies to overcome these barriers, fostering projects that embrace diverse ways of knowing in society.
