Subtle CSCW Traits: Tensions Around Identity Formation and Online Activism in the Asian Diaspora

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has been uniquely challenging for the Asian diaspora. The virus has directly devastated Asian communities around the world, most notably across India. Its indirect effects have also been crushing: violent hate crimes against elders, the dissolution of once-thriving businesses, and the trauma of pandemic-enforced disconnect from transnational family networks have all weighed heavily on Asian people. Publicly grappling with these difficulties, through hashtags and GoFundMes across social media, has raised awareness of the issues that Asian people have dealt with long before COVID. But doing so amidst isolation has illuminated a need for space to build relationships, confront intra- and inter-community biases, and envision a more hopeful future. This workshop looks to create that space. By convening social computing researchers with ties to Asian diaspora identities, we aim to foster discussion of how social platforms enable identity formation and online activism unique to the Asian diasporic experience. We will consider what it means to be an Asian diaspora researcher, challenge CSCW's notion of what it means to be Asian, and explore how Asianness can work in alliance with other marginalized identities to ultimately concretize a research agenda for CSCW to more meaningfully engage with Asian diaspora experiences.