What Are You Not Reading? Critical Race Theory for HCI

Abstract

As an early-career researcher, at first, I thought about the possibilities that engaging more profoundly with issues such as race, gender, and class in my work might make clear the unintended consequences of digital technologies in futuring (and defuturing) specific organizing features of communities in Africa. The prevailing argument in African HCI is how diverse social values, cultural attributes, and lived experiences can be drawn into conversations about the applicability and sustainability of HCI methods, approaches, and techniques to technology design projects. Within narratives about appropriation and localization, for example, issues of race and racism don’t figure prominently, and my initial thought was, what would CRT offer in furthering the understanding of the politics of design—ontologically and epistemologically?