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Shifting Borderland of Technoscience: Tracing Trajectories of Critical Practice

<div class="page" title="Page 1"><div class="layoutArea"><div class="column"><p><span>Since the publication of Phil Agre’s [1] seminal work on critical technical practice, the sites of intersection between computation and society have multiplied, and so too have the sociotechnical borderlands we inhabit. Critical methodologies such as “critical design” [8,6,5], “reflective design” [3,4,7,9,15,12], “critical making” [11,6,7], “located accountability” [13, 14], “feminist HCI” [2], and “postcolonial computing” [10] have proliferated and are being taken up in increasingly diverse political, cultural and social contexts. As the sites of critical praxis have multiplied, new regimes like big data and social computing pose new challenges. Given the fluidity of the landscape it is important for us to articulate the specificities of our scholarly borderlands. By bringing together junior and senior scholars we aim to provide a forum for researchers in this area to learn from each other how to navigate changing terrains of technology research and design. To maximize in- depth collaboration between junior and senior scholars, we propose a format that includes in-depth mentoring sessions, panel presentations from junior and senior participants, group activities, and working sessions for steps forward. The goal of the proposed workshop is to foster cohesion and build mentoring relationships within the community by creating a space for open and honest dialogue about the challenges of conducting critical research and design practice. Outcomes from this workshop will be a shared knowledge base about praxis, tracing the trajectories, continuities, traversals and inheritances of critical sociotechnical research over the past decade, as well as strengthening of the critical technical practice community by way of establishing lasting mentorship relations. </span></p></div></div></div>

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Double Binds and Double Blinds: Evaluation Tactics in Critically Oriented HCI

<div class="page" title="Page 1"><div class="layoutArea"><div class="column"><p><span>Critically oriented researchers within Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) have fruitfully intersected design and critical analysis to engage users and designers in reflection on underlying values, assumptions and dominant practices in technology. To successfully integrate this work within the HCI community, critically oriented researchers have tactically engaged with dominant practices within HCI in the design and evaluation of their work. This paper draws attention to the ways that tactical engagement with aspects of HCI evaluation methodology shapes and bears consequences for critically oriented research. We reflect on three of our own experiences evaluating critically oriented designs and trace challenges that we faced to the ways that sensibilities about generalizable knowledge are manifested in HCI evaluation methodology. Drawing from our own experiences, as well as other influential critically oriented design projects in HCI, we articulate some of the trade-offs involved in consciously adopting or not adopting certain normative aspects of HCI evaluation. We argue that some forms of this engagement can hamstring researchers from pursuing their intended research goals and have consequences beyond specific research projects to affect the normative discourse in the field as a whole.</span></p></div></div></div>

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