Postcolonial computing

Social Justice-Oriented Interaction Design

“…An inattention to the specificities of local politics and the power relations among the multiple stakeholders involved in a development project often contributes to the increased marginalization of oppressed groups while further entrenching existing power structures [see 45,82,89]. Recent critiques have argued for the need to re-politicize design and engineering practices, especially in the ways that designers and researchers identify and frame problems [82], to rethink assumptions about what makes 'poverty' a thing to fix [66,45], and to be wary of perpetuating already-uneven economic relations by transforming individuals into consumers [66,41]. Moreover, as Escobar [40] has argued, including more people and stakeholders alone is not enough.…”

“…In this direction, some recent ICTD projects have embodied an explicit focus on social change through resisting forms of oppression, such as sexism, classism, racism, and ableism (e.g., [102,112,70]). Irani et al affirm that "all design research and practice is culturally located and power laden" and argue for a more explicitly political engagement with social issues like poverty because apolitical stances often occlude "the sometimes highly political causes of poverty" [66]. In their analysis, they draw from Ferguson, an anthropologist, to highlight how these development projects, by aligning with commercial interests, frequently ignore the political and historical trajectories that produce and perpetuate the conditions of poverty [45; see also 82,89].…”

Design for Existential Crisis in the Anthropocene Age

“…Although this often brings a focus on issues such as education and health, it does also include more general digital concerns, such as access to technology and colonialism in implementation [35]. Newer initiatives include design for peace [34] and for social justice [20], concern for addressing refugee issues [64] and other humanitarian crises.…”

Haitian resiliency: A case study in intermittent infrastructure

“…For example, while micro-finance, women's rights, clean water access, and mosquito nets filled our minds as grant writers, the people on the ground were much more concerned about the dangers posed by snakes. This prompted much soul-searching about "helping" in the face of cultural differences (Patterson, Sim, Aiyelokun, 2009) and reflected broader thinking in the HCI community about post-colonial computing (Irani et al, 2010). As a response, this case study was framed as trying to learn from Haitians rather than trying to fix problems for them, at least in the short-term.…”