From data points to people: feminist situated ethics in online big data research

Many ethical concerns in online big data research stem from a pervasive assumption that data are disembodied and place-less. While some scholars have begun addressing the ethical dilemmas of big data, few offer approaches or tools that fully grapple with the situatedness of online data and its ethical implications. We draw on feminist new materialist scholars to interrogate the onto-epistem-ological assumptions of online big data research and explicate their ethical implications. We then use Donna Haraway's work as a theoretical foundation for a reimagining of online data as embodied and situated, putting forth a 'feminist situated ethics' as an alternative ethical framework for online big data research. Finally, we discuss how to enact feminist situated ethics at the different stages of the research process to provide guidance for online big data researchers.