This paper explores the value of archival theory as a means of grappling with bias in algorithmic design. Rather than seek to mitigate biases perpetuated by datasets and algorithmic systems, archival theory offers a reframing of bias itself. Drawing on a range of archival theory from the fields of history, literary and cultural studies, Black studies, and feminist STS, we propose absence-as power, presence, and productive-as a concept that might more securely anchor investigations into the causes of algorithmic bias, and that can prompt more capacious, creative, and joyful future work. This essay, in turn, can intervene into the technical as well as the social, historical, and political structures that serve as sources of bias.

翻译：本文探讨了档案理论作为应对算法设计中偏见问题的价值。不同于试图减轻数据集与算法系统所延续的偏见，档案理论提供了对偏见本身的重新框架化。借鉴历史学、文学与文化研究、黑人研究以及女性主义科学技术研究领域的多元档案理论，我们提出“缺席作为权力、在场与生产力”——这一概念或能更稳固地锚定对算法偏见成因的探究，并激发更为广阔、更具创造力与愉悦性的未来研究。本文因而能够介入作为偏见来源的技术结构，以及社会、历史与政治结构。