Navigating the DEIverse: A comprehensive review and research agenda on diversity, equity, and inclusion in the metaverse

ABSTRACT Metaverse platforms are shifting from speculative visions to deployed infrastructures and intensifying diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) concerns through embodied participation, intensive data capture, and platform governance. We use the DEIverse as a cartographic label for the research space where metaverse technologies intersect with DEI concerns and map its topic structure. We compile 176 publications (2007-2024) from Scopus, Web of Science, and curated Google Scholar records and combine bibliometric science mapping based on co-word analysis with theory-informed content analysis. We identify ten topics that cluster as motor (“Learning”, “Ethics”, “Healthcare”), niche (“Regulation”, “Autism”), emerging (“Blockchain”, “Safety”, “Accessibility”), and transversal (“COVID-19”, “Avatar”). We interpret the clusters through critical race theory, intersectionality, disability studies, and critical data studies and distill three claims and nine propositions. Layered access divides make connectivity, affordability, embodied usability, and institutional e-capacity key participation thresholds. Datafied embodiment converts behavioral and biometric capture into profiling, surveillance, and classification pressures that reshape privacy, autonomy, and due process. Governance and valuation regimes distribute voice, safety, and opportunity through identity rules, moderation architectures, standards, and virtual asset infrastructures. The integrative matrix situates these propositions across micro, meso, and macro levels and reveals a dual-track field: application-oriented work in education and health outpaces structural analyses of accessibility, labor, and global asymmetries. We conclude with a multilevel research agenda for measuring distributional effects, strengthening data governance and redress, and designing inclusive immersive infrastructures.