Ways of knowing algorithms

Abstract

This chapter brings together research on algorithmic knowledge, literacy, folk theories, and sensemaking with feminist epistemologies, literacy studies, and other situated and practice-based theories of knowledge and learning to conceptualize three intersecting ways of knowing algorithms: conceptual, embodied, and social. Rather than prescribing a series of universal facts and skills required of all, this framework highlights the heterogeneity and contextual value of distinct forms of knowledge. Drawing on examples from algorithm studies, the chapter calls for a shift in focus from what everyone should know to what specific communities need to know to navigate algorithms in their everyday lives. In doing so, it lays the conceptual foundation for the chapters that follow.