Otherwise Computing Ethics: An Alterous Discourse Analysis of Black Changemakers in Computing

• In Event: Sunday Roundtable Session 1:15 pm
  In Roundtable Session: Reimagining STEM Education (Table 21)

Abstract

While Whiteness is a dominant onto-epistemology, it is not the only one. Within this paper, I utilize a framework and method that aim to center ways of knowing and being toward liberation. Specifically, I analyze the discourse of two Black women within the computing community who have fallen outside the respectability politics that Whiteness in the field demands. I ask: How does examining Black changemakers' challenges to hegemonic computing institutions surface liberatory ways of engaging with ethics in computing? Ultimately, I find that to be a computer scientist, in the logics of my participants, is to first be a person in and with the world, to understand the world, and to commit to accountability alongside the entire computing ecosystem.

Author

• Natalie Araujo Melo, Northwestern University