Trans* Vulnerability and Digital Research Ethics: A Qubit Ethical Analysis of Transparency Activism

Trans* Vulnerability and Digital Research Ethics: A Qubit Ethical Analysis of Transparency Activism

연구 분야: Cryptography

학회: SIGDOC '21: Proceedings of the 39th ACM International Conference on Design of Communication

Trans* communities across the United States are under assault. Researchers seeking to work with trans* people and other multiply marginalized and underrepresented communities must attend to ethical research practices within the communities in which they participate. Digital research ethics is particularly murky with issues of embodiment, vulnerability, and unclear IRB guidance. Comparing two transparency activist organizations—Wikileaks and DDoSecrets—we introduce “qubit ethics,” a trans*material, trans-corporeal ethics of care as praxis within vulnerable online communities. We then demonstrate how this unique approach to research design allows for the complex entanglements that is trans* life, particularly digital life. Finally, we present clear take-aways for qubit-ethics informed social justice research.