#CHIversity

Abstract

In this alt.chi paper, we reflect on #CHIversity; a grassroots campaign highlighting feminist issues related to diversity and inclusion at CHI2017, and in HCI more widely. #CHIversity was operationalised through a number of activities including: collaborative cross-stitch and 'zine' making events; the development of a 'Feminist CHI Programme'; and the use of a Twitter hashtag '#CHIversity'. These events granted insight into how diversity discourses are approached within the CHI community. From these recognitions we provide examples of how diversity and inclusion can be promoted at future SIGCHI events. These include fostering connections between attendees, discussing 'polarizing' research in a conservative political climate, and encouraging contributions to the growing body of HCI literature addressing feminisms and related subjects. Finally, we suggest how these approaches and benefits can translate to HCI events extending beyond CHI, where exclusion may routinely go undetected.

On Activism and Academia

“…For example, recent discourses on racism and injustices experienced by a group of scholars working to improve the ACM [37] was followed by multiple responses of support from others in the community (see e.g., [83,104]). This particular case also is reminiscent of previous experiences of censorship of those made marginal in academia illustrated, for instance, when an article about pleasure in LGBT + sexuality was not allowed to be published in the Human to Human ACM XRDS magazine [2], by the necessity for researchers to respond to their experiences of marginalisation at the CHI conference through the #CHIversity campaign [138,141], or by the ways in which disabled authors have experienced epistemic violence [163]. There have also been calls for the necessity of including black women's experiences in research [120] and a call for the inclusion of more women of colour's voices in mainstream feminist activism within our discipline [1].…”

CHInclusion

“…We hope it will be a starting point for CHI community members and organisers to reflect on issues of equity and inclusion within our community. The idea of this booklet is situated in feminist histories of making and craftivism (craft + activism) [18] and a working draft will be conceptualised and made with participants during the workshop.…”

“…Alongside these developments, ACM members have also developed a variety of SIGs, workshops, and panels in the past to address specific issues related to feminisms [4], intersectionality [11], justice [10], or self-established communities [2,3,5,16], while others have worked in less institutional ways to develop grassroots action towards more inclusive spaces at CHI directly [18]. We wholeheartedly welcome these developments, and hope to see more of these in the future, but at the same time appreciate that we as a community have work to do before calling ourselves a truly inclusive space.…”

“…With this workshop, we invite anyone concerned about inclusion at ACM SIGCHI events to help us build on previous grassroots work (eg. [2,10,11,18]) and respond to one of the points raised in the Open Letter to the CHI community read during the Town Hall at CHI 2018 [9]: "I think it is a bit harsh for us to address this social problem only at this year's CHI, the organisers of which have done a lot to put inclusion initiatives into place. I also think it is a huge amount of pressure on next year's organisers to say they must fix these deeply entrenched, contextualised and nuanced social concerns surrounding exclusion, toxic environments, and harassment.…”

Feminist human–computer interaction: Struggles for past, contemporary and futuristic feminist theories in digital innovation

“…Interest in how the power of theory can inform such research and conversations has grown over the past decade, including several interpretations of feminist theories, methodologies, methods and/or tools (Bardzell, 2010; Ahmed and Irani, 2020; Rankin and Irish, 2020). Such work calls to, for instance, the development of activist campaigns for more inclusive and welcoming conference venues (Strohmayer et al, 2018), the formalisation of a Feminist HCI community (Bellini et al, 2018) and a dramatic increase in the number of publications that recognise their links to feminist theory (Chivukula and Gray, 2020).…”