I work to defamiliarize and reimagine web search. I’m a Ph.D. candidate at the UC-Berkeley School of Information where I use interviews and digital ethnography to research conceptions of search engines, web search practices, and their entanglement with societal values. I study search counter-imaginaries: how we talk about, imagine, know, build, and practice different ways of searching.
As Noble (2018, p. 181-182) writes:
Indeed, we can and should imagine search with a variety of other possibilities. [ . . .] Such imaginings are helpful in an effort to denaturalize and reconceptualize how information could be provided to the public vis-à-vis the search engine. [emphases added]
Dissertation Research
My dissertation research looks at how data engineers think about and use web search in/at/for work. I have developed this into a case study of successful web searching, looking at how data engineers accomplish making web search work for them. I discuss:
- how search expertise is distributed across and structured in work practices
- how data engineers learn to search as data engineers
- why web search is often kept private and done in isolation from others
- how data engineers navigate the limitations of web search, describing the work of asking and answering questions among colleagues
I am currently conducting member checks—sharing what I’ve learned and soliciting feedback.