IEEE VIS 2024 Content: Entanglements for Visualization: Changing Research Outcomes through Feminist Theory

Best Paper Award

Entanglements for Visualization: Changing Research Outcomes through Feminist Theory

Derya Akbaba - Linköping University, Norrköping, Sweden

Lauren Klein - Emory University, Atlanta, United States

Miriah Meyer - Linköping University, Nörrkoping, Sweden

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Room: Bayshore I + II + III

2024-10-15T16:10:00Z GMT-0600 Change your timezone on the schedule page
2024-10-15T16:10:00Z
Exemplar figure, described by caption below
A series of overlapping circles that are made up of four concentric circles. The inner circle is labeled the knowledge artifact, then entanglements with phenomenon, then entanglements with apparatus, then entanglements. These concentric circles overlap in a wave of entanglements and cover topics listed as: data, vis, insight, power, conventions, technology, history, processes, materiality, people, society, design, labor, politics, ethics, places.
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Keywords

Epistemology, feminism, entanglement, theory

Abstract

A growing body of work draws on feminist thinking to challenge assumptions about how people engage with and use visualizations. This work draws on feminist values, driving design and research guidelines that account for the influences of power and neglect. This prior work is largely prescriptive, however, forgoing articulation of how feminist theories of knowledge — or feminist epistemology — can alter research design and outcomes. At the core of our work is an engagement with feminist epistemology, drawing attention to how a new framework for how we know what we know enabled us to overcome intellectual tensions in our research. Specifically, we focus on the theoretical concept of entanglement, central to recent feminist scholarship, and contribute: a history of entanglement in the broader scope of feminist theory; an articulation of the main points of entanglement theory for a visualization context; and a case study of research outcomes as evidence of the potential of feminist epistemology to impact visualization research. This work answers a call in the community to embrace a broader set of theoretical and epistemic foundations and provides a starting point for bringing feminist theories into visualization research.