To Gunnar (and Everyone),
I'm relatively new to this forum. I've followed the list for half a year as
a spectator, feeling too novice of a researcher to contribute; I am only in
the summer of my first year as a PhD student in HCI. However, the subject
of diversity, inclusion, and identity in design is becoming thematic in my
work, so I thought I'd weigh in.
I am a Black, gay, first-generation academic, Christian, American,
able-bodied, English-speaking, extroverted, politically left, Millennial,
male, and these are only a few of my identities. Depending on the context,
some of these identities privilege me to positions of power, while others
are often quite oppressive. Many are within my control to conceal, or
reveal at my choosing, but some are nearly always apparent and open to
judgment by the observer. Moreover, most of the identities have and will
continue to evolve in prominence in my life and in their positive and
negative impressions as perceived by others.
The affect of personal identity cannot be meaningfully conveyed by the sum
total of the social privileges and micro-agressive oppressions it affords.
However, the felt-life will be expressed through calls for equitable
treatment of comments on discussion forums by underrepresented genders;
petitions for the acknowledgement of geopolitical or hereditary favoritism
at conferences by scholars from minority nations; and self-segregation,
intellectualism, humor, apology, and candor will be positioned as a shield
and sword within the wild world of interacting with folks of a different
ilk.
And, so, here we are: Scholars arguing the validity of ideas *not* people,
as if the two weren't intrinsically linked. We're stumbling with our
emotions, perceptions of power, and the well researched challenges of
asynchronous communication. I'm in the middle of a four hour car ride, and
had a moment to reflect:
It's hard to be a Middle-class White Male Academic. Differently hard than
my above-named identities, but particularly hard to weather the constant
barrage of claims that "you don't understand/recognize/acknowledge/respect
the challenges of 'X,' and given your immutable position of power, it is
your responsibility to make amends/tolerate/celebrate/pay deference to/or
ally with this foreign matter, of which you, by birthright, will always be
an outsider to its core tenants. Oh, and if you have any objections, please
walk on eggshells as you relay them, or be prepared for a personal attack
on the nature of your character."
It sounds like you need a safe space, but wait, "you already have one"
(says my minority strawman) - every venue of any merit is by default safe
for you; and so it's understandable that your refrain is (at best) one of
constant empathetic understanding; (more readily) begrudgingly accepting
diversity training as the new norm; (my suspicion) a concealed and growing
resentment; or (occasionally) vehement backlash.
Differently hard (and positioned as a binary for brevity) is it to be a
Non-Middle-class White Male Academic. *We* as a means to pursue our
professional goals must assimilate to or combat with a prevailing culture
for our research and production to be valued. Certainly everyone within a
community must conform to a set of standards or norms - but - when the
cultural foundations of that community are inherently foreign it is doubly
hard for the outsider to conform both in person and in output.
Perhaps because I am a developing HCI researcher at Indiana University, my
ear has been pulled more than once to Constructivist Grounded Theory as a
framework of understanding. There is no "truth" that is out in the world to
be discovered. Thereby, no one group can every have primary claim to the
source of Knowledge (capitalized for emphasis). Rather truths are socially
constructed by groups and are sufficiently useful for the workings of their
worldview. Personal understanding of knowledge is highly and completely -
personal. There is no perfect mechanism that can transmute the fullness of
a concept from one mind to another, as such the researcher goes through
great lengths to state how their personal worldview (not just the
theoretical school of thought to which they ascribe) contributes to their
understanding of an idea. These truths may permeate between groups (i.e.
fundamental laws of Physics), but the epistemological frameworks by which
they are derived and the ontological stances on what they are will vary by
researcher and both the cultural and scholarly group from which they
belong. I don't want to drill down too deeply into theory, because I'll be
speaking beyond what I know (very much still learning). From what I
understand, it is a very useful outlook for engaging in these online
discussions.
To address some of Gunnar's questions, for example:
>> "How do you think people should, as a rule, deal with assertions they
believe are misguided or false (or that they simply don’t fully
understand)? What is the alternative to what I might call traditional
academic procedure—someone positing ideas then others critiquing them then
others defending them?"
The back-and-forth between the exchange of ideas still persists, but there
is an open acknowledgement (a humility) that I, as a scholar, may only
accept this idea because it fits within how I have come to understand the
world as a Black American, or Upper-middle class Male, or any other
combination of aspects that define your personal identity. It's a
willingness to admit that the data are not agnostic of the *personal* (and
not just methodological) biases of how they are chosen and how they are
interpreted.
>> "The traditional use of the word "safe" is to mean protected from danger
or harm. Can you help us understand what particular dangers or harms have
happened here and/or are feared here?"
Biases exist. They are as natural and useful as they are damning. Not all
biases are created equal, and for women and persons of color they are
usually more negative than positive. It is impossible to hear that when an
idea comes from someone that is (insert identity here) that the quality of
that idea is not immediately warped by the bias. The solution isn't to
remove identity, but to acknowledge, wrestle with, and try to combat the
bias that distorts the idea. When I interview underrepresented students in
STEM (persons of color and non-males in Science, Technology, Engineering,
and Mathematics), there is a prevailing theme that they express that I
don't hear in their White and Male counterparts. These students earnestly
believe that when they fail, they are not just failing as a student, but
they are failing their race/culture/gender...They "must" do well, because
if they don't, they add further credence that they and their kind don't
belong in the discussion. It is their personal bias of they themselves
(stereotype threat), combined with their perceived bias that others have of
them, mixed with the very real biases that others have of them that
contributes to this impression that their performance is reflective of them
personally, and those with similar identities. When I enter into a safe
space (for me, a group of Black Men, or Gay Men, or First-year PhD
students...) there is a level of comfort knowing that my ideas will be
judged by a bias that I am more readily familiar with, and I will be
defending them with a bias that others are more accustomed to...
I know I'm not articulating this as well as I ought. I hope others will
find areas to jump in and refine with more acute reasoning. Likewise, I
want to be challenged in how I'm presently perceiving things. I hope some
of what I wrote is fruitful to the discussion.
Best,
Kyle Overton
*Indiana University*
*School of Informatics and Computing*
*Informatics Ph.D. Student - Human Computer Interaction/Design 2015*
407-516-0616
On Wed, Jul 6, 2016 at 8:56 AM, Gunnar Swanson <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:
> Lilly (and everyone),
>
> (I know I am risking coming off as an un-empathetic jerk at best but I
> hope people can trust that I am trying to understand; please read the
> following questions as actual questions, not as rhetorical questions.)
>
> Could you flesh your statements out a bit for those of us who are unsure
> of what is being suggested?
>
> > - how safe spaces cannot simply be declared but have to be created, like
> > trust, over time
>
> The traditional use of the word "safe" is to mean protected from danger or
> harm. Can you help us understand what particular dangers or harms have
> happened here and/or are feared here?
>
> (Or is there some other notion of safety we should be aware of?
>
> > - how "robust" discussion dominates other values like listening and
> > attempting to empathize
>
>
> How do you think people should, as a rule, deal with assertions they
> believe are misguided or false (or that they simply don’t fully
> understand)? What is the alternative to what I might call traditional
> academic procedure—someone positing ideas then others critiquing them then
> others defending them?
>
> > Questions of speaking -- who speaks, who listens -- are, despite comments
> > otherwise, precisely related to privilege.
>
> In the case of this listserv, how do you respond to someone who believes
> that "who speaks" is determined by who choses to speak? If the question is
> who believe that they have standing to speak, how do we assure others that
> the notion of standing is wrong?*
>
> In a forum such as this, how does one know that someone has really
> listened unless there are responses that (perhaps sharply) question what
> was said?
>
> > Perhaps this list needs a culture of robust care for new positions and
> > ideas, as much as critical discussion
>
>
> How does one care for positions and ideas other than by questioning them
> so they can be fully understood? (That may be a restating of my previous
> question.)
>
> Thanks.
>
>
> Gunnar
>
> *I am not arguing against claims of privilege in general but I strongly
> believe that those who think that there is a hefty cover charge at our door
> are mistaken. (I am, of course, open to being demonstrated to be wrong. I
> love to be wrong; that’s when I learn stuff.)
>
>
> Gunnar Swanson
> East Carolina University
> graphic design program
>
> http://www.ecu.edu/cs-cfac/soad/graphic/index.cfm
> [log in to unmask]
>
> Gunnar Swanson Design Office
> 1901 East 6th Street
> Greenville NC 27858
> USA
>
> http://www.gunnarswanson.com
> [log in to unmask]
> +1 252 258-7006
>
>
> -----------------------------------------------------------------
> PhD-Design mailing list <[log in to unmask]>
> Discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design
> Subscribe or Unsubscribe at https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/phd-design
> -----------------------------------------------------------------
>
-----------------------------------------------------------------
PhD-Design mailing list <[log in to unmask]>
Discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design
Subscribe or Unsubscribe at https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/phd-design
-----------------------------------------------------------------
|