As spaces for learning about Computer-Supported Collaborative Work (CSCW) research and practice become more diverse, there is a pressing need to revise the universal collaborative and pedagogical structures supporting them. Specifically, it has become urgent to explore how to ‘de-center’ dominant assumptions about who learns in these environments. Our workshop aims to collectively explore how to craft learning spaces that resist universality by recognizing and valuing other perspectives and realities. We will consider systemic roots of how learning spaces for socio-technical research are setup, ways in which they can be reconfigured, and explore potential research opportunities in the space.

In this sense, the workshop seeks to promote conversations and connections in order to discuss how the CSCW community can be more inclusive in regards to its different learning spaces. These learning spaces can be varied, ranging from university classes and labs, workshops at a tech company, to virtual gatherings via videoconference. Inclusion in such spaces could involve a better integration of learning audiences and spaces at the periphery of the current ways of collaborating and interacting within the CSCW practice, for example, in order to evaluate or design technology. We will examine the challenges involved in making CSCW more diverse and we will also set an actionable plan with which participants of the workshop could become agents in decolonizing learning spaces.

Workshop Goals:

• Understanding Decoloniality. Decoloniality seeks to make visible and advance diverse perspectives and positionalities, displacing Western rationality as the only framework of analysis and thought. At the same time, decoloniality is, by all means, contextual. To start working towards a pluralistic future for CSCW, we will first engage in reflections on what coloniality and decoloniality has meant to us personally and then, collectively; within and beyond the academic setting.
• Thinking About Decoloniality in CSCW. After reaching a collective understanding of what decoloniality means, we will then transition into exploring the questions such as How has the CSCW community and its learning spaces been impacted by coloniality? and What would it mean for CSCW to deconstruct disconnections within its learning spaces and beyond?
• Making Decolonial Paths for CSCW. Lastly, we will collectively discuss how to bring decoloniality into our praxis; that is, possible decolonial paths that promote relational ways of knowing and doing in CSCW. We will focus on answering the questions of the for, the how, and the with whom, and what for decoloniality within CSCW learning and practice.