iSchool Research Symposium: Patricia Garcia
Title: Intermediation: Algorithms, Homelessness, and the Politics of Being In-Between
Abstract: Homelessness is a significant and growing crisis in the United States. In an effort to more efficiently and fairly distribute limited housing resources, jurisdictions across the US have adopted algorithmic prioritization systems to help select which unhoused people should receive resources. In this talk, we discuss how frontline bureaucrats mediate between the rigidity of the homeless services infrastructure and the messy social worlds of people experiencing homelessness. Drawing on theories of translation and articulation work, the paper proposes “intermediation” as a means of understanding the position and labor of being in-between an infrastructure and the social worlds it intersects.
Speaker Bio: Patricia Garcia is an Assistant Professor in the School of Information at the University of Michigan. Her work examines how historically marginalized groups develop agentic relationships with technology and data. She collaborates with public libraries to study how computational justice programs can support girls of color in seeing themselves as active decision-makers who can leverage technologies to participate in individual and collective action. She also examines how data practices used in public service contexts perpetuate forms of oppression and marginalization among vulnerable populations. She draws on feminist and critical data approaches to investigate how data is generated, captured, analyzed, and deployed in public service contexts, such as homeless services and public education systems. Based on findings from these investigations, she creates educational interventions that support vulnerable populations in decision-making processes that facilitate greater control over their data.