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Reimagining Data Work: Participatory Annotation Workshops as Feminist Practice

Yujia Gao, Isadora Araujo Cruxên, Helena Suárez Val, Alessandra Jungs de Almeida, Catherine D'Ignazio, Harini Suresh

TL;DR

A case study of multilingual, iterative, and participatory data annotation processes with journalists and activists focused on news narratives of gender-related violence shows how workshops rooted in feminist epistemology can foster dialogue, build community, and disrupt knowledge hierarchies in data annotation.

Abstract

AI systems depend on the invisible and undervalued labor of data workers, who are often treated as interchangeable units rather than collaborators with meaningful expertise. Critical scholars and practitioners have proposed alternative principles for data work, but few empirical studies examine how to enact them in practice. This paper bridges this gap through a case study of multilingual, iterative, and participatory data annotation processes with journalists and activists focused on news narratives of gender-related violence. We offer two methodological contributions. First, we demonstrate how workshops rooted in feminist epistemology can foster dialogue, build community, and disrupt knowledge hierarchies in data annotation. Second, drawing insights from practice, we deepen the analysis of existing feminist and participatory principles. We show that prioritizing context and pluralism in practice may require ``bounding'' context and working towards what we describe as a ``tactical consensus.'' We also explore tensions around materially acknowledging labor while resisting transactional researcher-participant dynamics. Through this work, we contribute to growing efforts to reimagine data and AI development as relational and political spaces for understanding difference, enacting care, and building solidarity across shared struggles.

Reimagining Data Work: Participatory Annotation Workshops as Feminist Practice

TL;DR

A case study of multilingual, iterative, and participatory data annotation processes with journalists and activists focused on news narratives of gender-related violence shows how workshops rooted in feminist epistemology can foster dialogue, build community, and disrupt knowledge hierarchies in data annotation.

Abstract

AI systems depend on the invisible and undervalued labor of data workers, who are often treated as interchangeable units rather than collaborators with meaningful expertise. Critical scholars and practitioners have proposed alternative principles for data work, but few empirical studies examine how to enact them in practice. This paper bridges this gap through a case study of multilingual, iterative, and participatory data annotation processes with journalists and activists focused on news narratives of gender-related violence. We offer two methodological contributions. First, we demonstrate how workshops rooted in feminist epistemology can foster dialogue, build community, and disrupt knowledge hierarchies in data annotation. Second, drawing insights from practice, we deepen the analysis of existing feminist and participatory principles. We show that prioritizing context and pluralism in practice may require ``bounding'' context and working towards what we describe as a ``tactical consensus.'' We also explore tensions around materially acknowledging labor while resisting transactional researcher-participant dynamics. Through this work, we contribute to growing efforts to reimagine data and AI development as relational and political spaces for understanding difference, enacting care, and building solidarity across shared struggles.
Paper Structure (26 sections, 2 figures)

This paper contains 26 sections, 2 figures.

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Related Work
  3. Data Annotation Practices in AI
  4. Feminist and Participatory AI
  5. Workshops and Collective Dialogue
  6. Participatory Data Annotation in Practice: Co-creating an Annotated Dataset on Feminicide News
  7. Research team
  8. Background and Problem Statement
  9. From Design Principles to Iterative Design Practice
  10. Introductory Workshop
  11. Followup Workshops
  12. Asynchronous annotation
  13. Participant Feedback
  14. Reflecting on Workshops as a Methodology for AI Development
  15. Pluralism within Bounded Contexts
  16. ...and 11 more sections

Figures (2)

  • Figure 1: An example annotation interface on Label Studio.
  • Figure 2: Collaborative sticky-note brainstorming board from the Spanish workshop (in Spanish). Participants ideate on how technology could support different phases of feminicide news production and readership.