Short abstract:

This contribution aims to further develop the embedded ethics and social science approach to enable future projects to effectively deploy it. It is based on the practical experience of using ethics and social science methodology in interdisciplinary AI-related healthcare consortia.

Long abstract:

Integrating artificial intelligence (AI) into critical domains such as healthcare holds immense promise. Nevertheless, significant challenges must be addressed to avoid harm, promote the well-being of individuals and societies, and ensure ethically sound and socially just technology development. Innovative approaches like Embedded Ethics, which refers to integrating ethics and social science into technology development based on interdisciplinary collaboration, are emerging to address issues of bias, transparency, misrepresentation, and more. This paper aims to further develop this approach to enable future projects to effectively deploy it. Based on the practical experience of using ethics and social science methodology in interdisciplinary AI-related healthcare consortia, this paper presents a set of methods that have proven helpful for embedding ethical and social science analysis and inquiry. They include (1) stakeholder analyses, (2) literature reviews, (3) ethnographic approaches, (4) peer-to-peer interviews, (5) focus groups, (6) interviews with affected groups and external stakeholders, (7) bias analyses, (8) workshops, and (9) interdisciplinary results dissemination. We believe that applying Embedded Ethics offers a pathway to stimulate reflexivity, proactively anticipate social and ethical concerns, and foster interdisciplinary inquiry into such concerns at every stage of technology development. This approach can help shape responsible, inclusive, and ethically aware technology innovation in healthcare and beyond.

Please note, this tool allows for 8 co-authors max - full list: Theresa Willem, Marie-Christine Fritzsche, Bettina M. Zimmermann, Anna Sierawska, Svenja Breuer, Maximilian Braun, Anja K. Ruess, Marieke Bak, Franziska B. Schönweitz, Lukas J. Meier, Amelia Fiske, Daniel Tigard, Ruth Müller, Stuart McLennan, Alena Buyx

Short abstract:

This proposal offers a panoramic view of theoretical models of technology decolonization; and debates methods, tensions, and opportunities in co-creating and co-developing a framework for decolonizing transformation in non-Western and Southern innovation and technology.

Long abstract:

Value-centered and context-driven technologies show that innovation ecosystems (Granstrand, Holgersson, 2020) have the power to create a space where pluriversal (Escobar, 2017) worldviews can converge and co-create a sustainable future, co-developing responsive solutions with social assemblages (Deleuze, Guattari, 1987). The notion of technological development and success still seems to be retained by Europe and North America, where Southern geographies’ marginalization is supported by power structures seeking to maintain historical dominance (such as the colonial legacy). When Post-coloniality (Mignolo, 2007) is entangled with Science and Technology Studies (STS), it opens a realm to comprehend the feasibility of decolonizing digital technology and shaping a future digital landscape where Northern knowledge is situated and positioned (Haraway, 1988) and Southern populations can enjoy digital fairness. Naturally, to accomplish such an ambitious milestone, frameworks across many disciplines have emerged, covering a myriad of thematic approaches, and this proposal will offer a panoramic view of the existing theoretical models. Additionally, this paper will debate the possibility of a framework for decolonizing transformation in non-Western and Southern innovation and technology - and the tensions that emerge from (i) data collection and extrativism practices versus the consumption of digital goods, (ii) tailoring of systems and algorithms versus their meaningful application among societies, and (iii) the suppression of cultural and linguistic diversity versus shared and purposive prosperity. As a result, it is expected that by addressing the tensions, boundaries, and opportunities within technology decolonization frameworks, this panel can offer insights to pave the way toward Southern digital emancipation.

Short abstract:

Engaged research holds such promise as a transformative approach. But it assumes basic civic rights. How do collaborative ideals need to be modified, if these are not assured? I discuss lessons from collaborative research in Central Asia, normative assumptions of engagement and necessary adaptations

Long abstract:

Collaborative and engaged methods are becoming mainstream in many anglophone academic environments. They hold such promise as transformative approaches to the global challenges we face. But much of the literature and practice assumes a basic degree of freedom of speech, not experienced by the majority of people in the world. How can the ideals of collaboration and engagement work in such settings?

Amid the deserved enthusiasm for transformative research, openly discussing misjudgments is key to developing more context-sensitivity for living engaged methods. This contribution shares experiences from the ‘sticky bits’ and moments of risk in working with collaborative and arts-based ethnographic methods in post-Soviet Central Asia. I want to share some humbling lessons, as well as the opportunity for collegial support and collectively honing the collaborative toolbox.

If iterative research design principles and co-production of knowledge are the norm, what adaptations in non-‘free’ settings should become a matter of critical attention? How do you make sense of responsibilities, in the wake of townspeople collaborating in Kyrgyzstan, being quizzed by the secret police? What if local hospitality ethics in rural Kazakhstan preclude addressing less-than-respectful relations between older and younger workshop participants? When does collaboration become oppositional politics, needing to learn more from social movements than classic science epistemologies? In addressing especially points 3, 4 and 5 of the panel agenda, I could either contribute a classic paper or use a more personal style and arts-based style of story-telling.

Short abstract:

How can we think of affirmative ethics as an engaged methodology? Inspired by Braidotti’s work on affirmative ethics, I draw a cartography of critical drug studies to argue that the field has created collective affirmative ethics by tracing the past decade of academic and policy developments.

Long abstract:

Inspired by Braidotti’s work on affirmative ethics, I draw a cartography of critical drug studies – a field that explores the social, material, and affective constellations of lived experiences of people who use illicit drugs and drug policies that, in turn, shape these experiences – to argue for methodological affirmative ethics. In Braidotti’s reading, affirmative ethics is a collective practice of “co-constructing affirmative modes of relation and values” (2019: 475). Inspired by Deleuzian turn that challenges the traditional qualitative methodologies, affirmative ethics stresses the presence as a process of ‘becoming’ – ethical, accountable, and engaged. Here the field of critical drug studies presents a unique example in which lines between research, advocacy, and personal practice are enmeshed in making up the evidence, interventions, and policy discourse of the field and its radical epistemologies. These methodological shifts include reframing ‘addiction’ as habit and as (re)made in practice (Fraser, Moore and Keane, 2014), understanding drug use through body mapping and artistic engagement (Dennis, 2019a; 2019b), ‘recovery’ as an assemblage rather than individual journey (Duff, 2016; Sultan, 2022b), de-centralizing human agency, and conceptualizing drug use contexts as heterogeneous and dynamic (Duff, 2007; Sultan and Duff, 2021), foregrounding pleasure in drug use, shifting perceptions by ‘coming out’ as researchers who use drugs (Ross et al., 2020), and advocating for anti-prohibitionist policies. Through all these, the field exemplifies engaged methodological collaboration (Calvert, 2023) of becoming different, reshaping practices and entrenched understandings of drug use, and prompting the question of “what are we capable of becoming?”.

Short abstract:

Through storytelling, collaborative imagination and collegial support we start building a speculative tool-box for living engaged methodologies between observation, collaboration and intervention. Thereby we explore formats and structures of mutual support.

Long abstract:

Through storytelling, collaborative imagination and collegial support we start building a speculative tool-box for living engaged methodologies between observation, collaboration and intervention. Thereby we explore formats and structures of mutual support.

Short abstract:

Moderators: Paula Helm, Tanja Ahlin, Roanne v. Voorst. Roundtable Discussants: Tobias Blanke, Jane Calvert, Huub Dijstelbloem, Klaus Hoeyer, Jeannette Pols.

Long abstract:

This Round table will explore questions emerging at the intersection of Empirical Research, Value Conflicts and Ethical Reflections. It will start with inputs by Round Table discussants, then delve into their personal experiences within their particular fields of research, and finally open up for a broader discussion engaging everyone in the room.