Data Repair
ATM Mizanur Rahman (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign), Syed Ishtiaque Ahmed (University of Toronto), Sharifa Sultana (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign)

TL;DR
This ethnographic study explores data repair practices in Bangladesh, highlighting technical, linguistic, and ethical challenges faced by local repairers and their implications for data equity and HCI.
Contribution
It provides an in-depth ethnographic analysis of data repair work in a low-resource setting, emphasizing socio-technical and ethical dimensions often overlooked.
Findings
Data repair is constrained by limited access to high-precision tools and resources.
Repairers face linguistic barriers and ethical tensions in using external resources.
Pricing strategies reflect both technical effort and emotional labor involved in data repair.
Abstract
This paper investigates data repair practices through a six-month-long ethnographic study in Bangladesh. Our interviews and field observations with data repairers and related stakeholders found that, alongside the scarcity of high-precision machinery and access to advanced software, data repair work is constrained by cross-language learning resources and the protective nature of documenting, curating, and sharing the experiences and knowledge among local peers. Repairers turning to external resources such as foreign forums and LLMs also revealed their frustrating experiences and the postcolonial ethical tensions they encountered. We noted that both anticipated technical labor and the emotionality of data were taken into account for pricing the data repair job, which contributed to their market sustainability strategies. Engaging with repair, infrastructure, and data poverty discourse,…
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Taxonomy
TopicsICT in Developing Communities · Information Systems Theories and Implementation · Innovative Human-Technology Interaction
