A Higher Purpose: Towards a Social Justice Informatics Research Framework

In today’s complex information environment, marked by deepening societal divides and growing inequality, issues of equity and justice are no longer the exclusive domain of the humanities and a handful of humanities-driven social scientists in the fields of information and technology. Instead, a growing number of researchers are seeking to make the intersection of information and technology on the one hand, and human flourishing and liberation, especially with respect to marginalized communities, on the other, the central focus of their teaching and research. Rather than trying to pigeon-hole these efforts as a distinct stream of research in the field of information and technology, this paper argues that centering questions of justice ought to be considered as the foundation of the field and therefore should permeate any epistemological agenda within in. To this end, we offer six actionable principles to help guide information researchers interested in justice-focused work which we refer to as social justice informatics.