Join us for UMSI’s annual iDEI Talks: Lightning Talks at the Intersections of Information, Diversity, Equity & Inclusion event! It will be held on April 14, from 12:00 pm to 1:00 pm on Zoom. Throughout this past year, UMSI has been working diligently to weave DEI into all facets of our school. To highlight these efforts this Ted-style talk event will feature 6 talks from students, staff, and faculty members at the School of Information. This event is designed to amplify efforts that connect with diversity, equity & inclusion across scholarship, teaching and learning, service and administration. We hope to stimulate ideas, conversation, collaboration, and action.
This event is open to the University of Michigan community, newly admitted UMSI students, and prospective UMSI students and is sponsored by UMSI’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Office (DEIO).
If you are NOT a current student, staff, or faculty member at the School of Information please register for the event on Sessions @ U-M. All current UMSI community members can add this event to their calendar by clicking our Google Calendar Link.
Presenters + Talks:
Understanding the Motivations and Practices of Disabled Live Streamers, Audrey Labrie and Rahaf Alharbi
Live streaming, a new form of live media, transcends the physical and virtual boundaries of traditional social media. People no longer dwell and perfect posts rather they can engage in spontaneous content creation and live entertainment. Live streaming leads to many joys such as meeting new people and spreading positivity through community building. However, live streaming is often taken up by populations who occupy normative categories (non-disabled, white, and male). Disabled live streamers face unique challenges given the dominance of ableism and inaccessibility. We interviewed 10 disabled live streamers who regularly stream on Twitch and Youtube Live to learn about their experiences, motivations, challenges, and how they navigate algorithmic and normative platform structures. We found that these disabled live streamers adopt various strategies to engage with their audience, craft their personas, and build inclusive communities. They utilize their platform to share their passions and hobbies and to advocate for people with disabilities.
Re-Connect/Re-Collect: Reparative Connections and Collections at the University of Michigan, Ricky Punzalan
The sizable Philippine collections at the University of Michigan underscore this institution’s role in U.S. colonial expansion. Michigan faculty, students, and alumni came to the Philippines to teach, conduct field research, establish business ventures, and participate in colonial administration. This involvement resulted in the accumulation of one of the largest Philippine collections in North America. It is time for the University to address its colonial complicity in the formation of these collections by developing decolonial and anti-racist policies and practices. This presentation will discuss the current efforts to develop alternative ways to represent and provide access to Philippine cultural heritage materials held by the Bentley Historical Library, the Special Collections Research Center in the University Library and the Museum of Anthropological Archaeology. This project asks: What constitutes reparative work in the decolonization of the University’s Philippine collections? With support from the Humanities Collaboratory, the project will: 1. define what it means to pursue decolonial praxis for Philippine collections; 2. identify institutional obligations and articulating reparative work; 3. reimagine community engagement; and finally, 4. decenter colonial provenance to better represent Indigenous communities and knowledge to understand the full extent of the collection.
LGBTQ Persons’ Pregnancy Loss Disclosures to Known Ties on Social Media, Cassidy Pyle
Pregnancy loss is a common yet stigmatized experience. We investigate (non)disclosure of pregnancy loss among LGBTQ people to known ties on identified social media as well as what constitutes ideal socio-technical disclosure environments. LGBTQ persons experiencing loss face intersectional stigma for holding a marginalized sexual and/or gender identity and experiencing pregnancy loss. We interviewed 17 LGBTQ people in the U.S. who used social media and had recently experienced pregnancy loss. We demonstrate how the Disclosure Decision-Making (DDM) framework explains LGBTQ pregnancy loss (non)disclosure decisions, thereby asserting the framework’s ability to explain (non)disclosure decisions for those facing intersectional stigma. We illustrate how one’s LGBTQ identity shapes (non)disclosure decisions of loss. We argue that social media platforms can better facilitate disclosures about silenced topics by enabling selective disclosure, enabling proxy content moderation, providing education about silenced experiences, and prioritizing such disclosures in news feeds.
Civil Rights Restoration and Recidivism, Hanna Hoover
When a person is convicted of a felony offense, they lose the right to vote, the candidacy to sit on a jury, the ability to hold public office, and the right to own firearms. In addition, civil rights revocation also denies the eligibility of certain occupational licenses and state-funded scholarships. It is unknown, a priori if civil right status influences labor market outcomes, voting behavior, or educational attainment, any of which may affect incentives for convicted felons to re-offend. As an aggregate measure of these channels, I analyze the casual link between civil rights restoration and rates of recidivism. To establish this relationship, this paper uses variation in the Rules of Executive Clemency, which affect an ex-felons’ ability to restore their civil rights. I find that restoring an individual’s civil rights reduces their probability to recidivate by 18 percentage points, which translates to a reduction in the overall recidivism rates by 1 percentage point.
Empowering Asian American Communities during COVID-19, Malana Chan
Nationally, Chinese and Asian American businesses reported large decreases in business (18%) as customers feared catching COVID-19 in these establishments and their ethnic enclaves. Forty-four of hate incidents took place at private businesses. As Michigan opens up, the increase in public interaction may lead to more hate incidents targeting Asian Americans, so it’s crucial that business owners feel safe. Through my work as an Engelhardt Social Justice Fellow, I was able to leverage the knowledge and skills from SI coursework and develop resources translated into different Asian languages.
Participatory Design of Assistive Communication Technology with Autistic Adults, Luke Kudryashov
Insights from a participatory design project focusing on augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) for autistic adults. This presentation will include an overview of the methods, findings, and reflections on the benefits of a participatory design approach to assistive technology research and design.
We will also have a special performance by the Guild Poetry, a collage of renowned, Michigan-based artists that have collectively performed throughout the country. Approaching spoken word with an unapologetic style of storytelling, these artists are best known for their honest and original spoken word poetry, which centers around the principles of social consciousness, scholarship, diversity, love, community action, and education.
