How to work at a research institute when you’re not an academic

Points, May 2021

In almost every field of work exists gatekeepers. Seemingly mundane tips and tricks are not made explicit and are expected to be part of common knowledge. In this piece, I interview a few of my colleagues at Data & Society and ask how they got to the organization and what advice they have for people trying to work at a research institute like ours. Nurturing our meaningful relationships in our networks can be one of the most important tasks in building something we are really proud of in ourselves.

Digital Archives Show Their Hand

Points, November 2020

Those who create, maintain, access, and amend records are all in some way “activators” of an archive. This piece discusses how digitizing records and leaving human evidence behind (i.e. the scanner’s fingers in the frame) activates a new life for an archive in a unique way. These “accidental” traces left when digitizing records make the user uncomfortable when encountering exploited human labor in something that was otherwise accessed without human help. Invisible work is uncovered through manual digitization and solidifies labor in time.

Is Knowledge for You? Epistemic Injustice and Worldbuilding

2018

In my senior paper, I discuss how epistemic injustice and intellectual segregation shape the types of knowledge communities do or do not choose to cultivate. I use Reddit and Wikipedia Talk pages as examples of gendered and racialized information spaces, with help from works by Miranda Fricker, Alice Walker, Toni Morrison, José Medina, María Lugones, and Sandra Lee Bartky.

Taking Up Space: Public Exhibitions of Privilege

2018

Using frameworks from Sara Ahmed, bell hooks, and Iris Marion Young, I explain how white supremacy functions in public spaces and how specific physical actions are oppressive to groups that do not have the same privileges in practicing their subjecthood in public. This paper draws a connection between the way people physically move through space and the power and privilege they possess in our society. I presented this paper at Villanova University’s Gender and Women’s Studies Student Research Conference in 2018.