Designing for the Arab World

In the Eye of the Student

“…We devised a localized student-centered school curriculum and took pragmatic decisions about school duration and taught material. We emphasize the fact that this short course was a sensitizing experience towards participatory approaches that are recognized as problematic in Arab culture [4] rather than a full course to teach participatory design which would need more time and different study materials. The instructors observed that the students who showed the "white savior" and the "othering" attitudes had made progress in the other aspects of the taught curriculum except for developing empathy for their participants.…”

“…Firstly, despite the great expansion of mobile technologies and connectivity in Africa -leading many countries towards a sort of technology revolution -African HCI researchers are still fundamentally underrepresented within the dominant HCI discourse [7]. This fact is made more alarming by a second paradox, according to which European and American researchers publish more about African HCI research than Africans themselves [7,4]. Additionally, this corpus of research mostly focuses on the "lack" of African HCI, depicting a scenario where more focus is given to what prevents a proper development of HCI similarly to the one occurred in Western countries [7].…”

“…Egypt's position in the global HCI discourse is different, and more in line with the ArabHCI academic initiative [4]. ArabHCI is led by Western-trained researchers who trust the principles and methods produced within the global HCI discourse; however, it sides with AfriCHI with regards to where the intellectual efforts for advancing HCI should come from.…”

Decolonizing Participatory Design: Memory Making in Namibia

“…The strengthening of local SigCHI chapters has been agreed with the aim of promoting the creation and publication of local research paradigms and results. Recent AfriCHI and ArabHCI initiatives are themselves examples of efforts of decolonizing HCI research, as they represent communities that are usually subjects of research rather than recognized as active collaborators in, or drivers of, HCI research [1,9,52]. Debate over the decolonizing of knowledge and research approaches is therefore a crucial component of PD and must be included in its practices.…”

“…Moreover, the project's emphasis on Namibia's recent colonial history in a large-scale EU-funded project added political emphasis to the importance of cross-cultural knowledge production and their global politics. 1 Our ongoing research case explores the everyday realities of young people in Namibia. Participatory design and design anthropological approaches engage local participants in exploring everyday experiences of postcolonialism and in creating possible alternative futures [20].…”