TY - GEN
T1 - Over-Researched and Under-Resourced
T2 - 6th Southern African Conference for Artificial Intelligence Research, SACAIR 2025
AU - van Iersel, Nanou
AU - Storbeck, Majsa
AU - Kruizinga, Marlon
AU - Grauwde, Michaël
N1 - Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository as part of the Taverne amendment. More information about this copyright law amendment can be found at https://www.openaccess.nl. Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.
PY - 2026
Y1 - 2026
N2 - This paper discusses ELSA (Ethical, Legal, and Social Aspects of technology) as an emerging methodology for transdisciplinary AI research, characterized by anticipatory technology assessment through close collaboration with diverse (societal) stakeholders. We offer a methodological reflection based on a 1,5 year-long case study on public safety and AI in Lombardijen, a neighbourhood in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, where we engaged residents as citizen stakeholders. Lombardijen is paradoxically under-resourced, meaning historically neglected and stigmatized as a ‘problem district’, yet over-researched, i.e. scrutinized by countless researchers who engage in what has been called ‘drive-by’ research – driving by, extracting data, and disappearing, often without benefits for the community. The community’s ensuing alienation from governmental and academic institutions means that citizens’ valuable contextual knowledge is often overlooked in public deliberation on AI. This raises our research question: How can citizens in low-trust neighbourhoods be meaningfully and reciprocally engaged in transdisciplinary AI research, and what does an ELSA approach offer in this regard? The paper details our experiences in Lombardijen respectively from ethical, legal, social, and technological perspectives. We candidly discuss our learnings, (modest) successes and limitations, ultimately emphasizing the importance of situated responsibility as a precondition for transdisciplinary AI research.
AB - This paper discusses ELSA (Ethical, Legal, and Social Aspects of technology) as an emerging methodology for transdisciplinary AI research, characterized by anticipatory technology assessment through close collaboration with diverse (societal) stakeholders. We offer a methodological reflection based on a 1,5 year-long case study on public safety and AI in Lombardijen, a neighbourhood in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, where we engaged residents as citizen stakeholders. Lombardijen is paradoxically under-resourced, meaning historically neglected and stigmatized as a ‘problem district’, yet over-researched, i.e. scrutinized by countless researchers who engage in what has been called ‘drive-by’ research – driving by, extracting data, and disappearing, often without benefits for the community. The community’s ensuing alienation from governmental and academic institutions means that citizens’ valuable contextual knowledge is often overlooked in public deliberation on AI. This raises our research question: How can citizens in low-trust neighbourhoods be meaningfully and reciprocally engaged in transdisciplinary AI research, and what does an ELSA approach offer in this regard? The paper details our experiences in Lombardijen respectively from ethical, legal, social, and technological perspectives. We candidly discuss our learnings, (modest) successes and limitations, ultimately emphasizing the importance of situated responsibility as a precondition for transdisciplinary AI research.
KW - Artificial Intelligence
KW - Citizen Engagement
KW - Digital Technologies
KW - ELSA
KW - Neighbourhoods
KW - Public Safety
KW - Transdisciplinary Research
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=105023827180&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/978-3-032-11733-5_35
DO - 10.1007/978-3-032-11733-5_35
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:105023827180
SN - 9783032117328
T3 - Communications in Computer and Information Science
SP - 557
EP - 574
BT - Artificial Intelligence Research - 6th Southern African Conference, SACAIR 2025, Proceedings
A2 - Gerber, Aurona
A2 - Pillay, Anban W.
PB - Springer
CY - Cham
Y2 - 1 December 2025 through 5 December 2025
ER -