Dear Mariam,
Thank you so much for your call for participation for the social justice
and design workshop. I am sorry to see you have been challenged on this
list is so by someone who he does not understand what social justice means
and simultaneously considers his opinion to be so important that he feel
justified in aggressively asking you questions any undergraduate political
studies 101 student should be able to answer. I hope you are not derailed
by someone so profoundly unaware of the academic and political work that is
done in this area.
All the best,
Joanna
Dr. Joanna Boehnert
Research Fellow in Design
CREAM (Centre for Research and Education in Arts and Media)
MAD (Media, Arts and Design), University of Westminster, London
Twitter: @Ecoene <https://twitter.com/Ecocene> and @EcoLabs
<https://twitter.com/EcoLabs>
PhD research <http://visecology.wordpress.com/> | Personal blog
<https://ecolabsblog.wordpress.com/>
LinkedIn <http://www.linkedin.com/in/jodyboehnert> | Academia.edu
<http://colorado.academia.edu/JodyJoannaBoehnert>
> Date: Thu, 10 Dec 2015 20:36:24 -0500
> From: Mariam Asad <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: CfP: Social Justice, Design, and HCI (CHI '16 workshop)
>
> **apologies for cross-posting**
>
> Hi folks,
>
> Some colleagues and I are co-organizing a one-day workshop at CHI 2016 in
> San Jose, CA and we’d like to invite y’all to participate. The Call for
> Participation— as well as workshop details, submission dates, and
> additional information— is available online <
> http://depts.washington.edu/tatlab/socialjustice/> now [1].
>
> The goal of the workshop is to first and foremost build a community of
> researchers, practitioners, and organizers around the intersection of
> technological design and social justice. Specifically, we seek to
> facilitate the conversations necessary to move beyond “design with good
> intentions” toward design praxis, or reflection and action directed to
> transform oppressive structures with and by the dispossessed, marginalized,
> and oppressed. There are examples of projects that contend with individual
> systems of oppression—however, there is presently no unified community or
> common understanding of how these research projects and activism can hang
> together. Moreover, there is a clear need to unpack and provide nuanced
> understandings of HCI projects that promote “good”.
>
> Second, we strive to build knowledge together. In our experience with
> social justice related projects, there are particular questions that need a
> broad range of experiences and perspectives to help answer. For example:
> “How can researchers balance commitments to research and the particular
> activist project at hand?” or “How can different principles of social
> justice inform HCI methods such as decolonization or intersectionality?” In
> particular, we are interested in building knowledge around design methods,
> researcher reflexivity, and different epistemic approaches toward design.
> Just as design is often generative and future looking, so too are social
> justice endeavors. As the late Grace Lee Boggs, a feminist social activist
> and philosopher, stated, “…we have the power within us to create ourselves
> and the world anew”.
>
> Early deadline for submission is December 14.
> Apply to submit here:
> http://depts.washington.edu/tatlab/socialjustice/submit/ <
> http://depts.washington.edu/tatlab/socialjustice/submit/>
> Any and all questions can be sent to us organizers at
> [log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]
> >.
>
> Thanks— we look forward to seeing folks' submissions!
>
> -mariam
>
> [1] http://depts.washington.edu/tatlab/socialjustice/ <
> http://depts.washington.edu/tatlab/socialjustice/>
>
> —
> Mariam Asad
> PhD Student, Digital Media, Georgia Institute of Technology
> @mariamnotmiriam || 404-735-8505
>
>
>
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> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 11 Dec 2015 13:44:17 +0000
> From: João Ferreira <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Re: CfP: Social Justice, Design, and HCI (CHI '16 workshop)
>
> Dear Mariam,
>
> I realize your post’s intention was to promote the workshop and not
> necessarily discuss the ideas therein. However, some of the statements made
> me raise an eyebrow, and since this is a public and open forum I would like
> to make a few comments.
>
> You wrote
>
> *The goal of the workshop is to first and foremost build a community of
> researchers, practitioners, and organizers around the intersection of
> technological design and social justice. *
>
> (Just a minor note) I would argue that all design is “technological”, but
> perhaps you mean design that operates at the cutting-edge?
>
> I get a bit edgy when I read terms such as “social justice”. I assume that
> the context of the workshop is western democratic countries; if so, it is
> granted (hopefully) that we all (well, maybe not Donald Trump) strive for a
> just society, a laudable principle that in our social-democratic states
> evolved to a political system based on the ideas of separation of powers
> (legislative, executive, and judiciary) upholding of individual freedom(s),
> egalitarianism, and so on. I’m not an expert on political science, but I
> reckon that, in democracy, a “just society” slowly emerges from the
> evolution and combination of those ideas and values, as well as from the
> constant adjustment of individual desires and collective interest. Of
> course, this is a somewhat naive perspective, since history has shown us
> that democratic states do not neatly evolve towards progressively more fair
> and just societies.
>
> I should probably make my point before I inevitably stray into deep waters:
> when you say “social justice” I wonder what do you actually mean. Justice
> for whom? What kind of injustice are we talking about? Why is this
> injustice not being handled by current laws? Who is going to enforce this
> “social justice”?
>
> Mind you, I can think of several injustices that exist in our current
> western societies (and I can think of dozens in under-developed countries)
> but I don’t think they can all be encompassed in the same sweeping term
> “social justice”.
>
> And also:
>
> *Specifically, we seek to facilitate the conversations necessary to move
> beyond “design with good intentions” toward design praxis, or reflection
> and action directed to transform oppressive structures with and by the
> dispossessed, marginalized, and oppressed. *
>
> What do you mean with “oppressive structures”? Oppressive to whom? What is
> the nature of these structures? I take issue with vague, slightly scary,
> and definitely cringe-worthy terms such as these because they are a
> rhetorical trope commonly found in political propaganda. (This is coming
> across too harsh, I don’t think your text is propaganda, but perhaps
> elaborating on some of these terms [same goes for “individual systems of
> oppression”] might help clarify what the workshop is about…)
>
> Again, I hope this doesn't come across too harsh. Good luck for the
> workshop!
>
> Best regards,
> João Ferreira
>
>
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