Integrating Faith, Religion, and Spirituality in HCI

ABOUT THE WORKSHOP

HCI scholarship has not yet fully engaged with faith, religion, and spirituality, even though billions of people around the world are associated with such traditions and belief systems. While a few papers and workshops at CHI have focused on particular religions, broader discussions around religion, interfaith relationships, and computing have been absent from mainstream HCI design concerns. In this workshop, we propose to bring together HCI scholars and practitioners, whose work is associated with various faiths, religions, and spiritual practices to start this important conversation, with a focus on three questions: (a) does secularization in computing marginalize faith-based values? and if so, how? (b) how can HCI design address the unique needs and values of faith-based communities? and (c) how can scholarship and practice in HCI benefit from the integration of faith, religion, and spirituality? We hope to form an HCI community of scholars and practitioners focused on the intersection of faith/spirituality/religion and computing.

CALL FOR Papers

Despite the prominence of religion, faith, and spirituality in people’s lives worldwide, HCI thus far has engaged with these only marginally. In this interactive workshop, we will reexamine what faith, religion, and spirituality could provide to more meaningful ways to engage (or not) with technology. Participants, in thematic clusters, will create a collective vision for future HCI research domains that will essentially integrate faith/spirituality in design conversations.

We invite researchers and practitioners interested in the intersection of faith and technology to submit position papers under the following themes:

• Secularization and Computing: How secularization in computing marginalizes, misfits, or conflicts with faith-based values?

• Designing for Faith-based Communities: How can HCI design address the unique needs and values of faith-based communities?

• Integrating Faith/Spirituality in HCI Domains: How can scholarship and practice in HCI benefit through the integration of faith, religion, and spirituality?

Important Dates:

• First round submission deadline: January 31, 2022.

• First round decision notification: February 11, 2022

We will invite a subset of papers from the first round to submit to a special issue of ACM Interactions.

• Final round submission deadline: March 18, 2022

• Final round decision notification: March 24, 2022

Submission Details:

• Follow this link for the submission details.

Suggested Formatting:

• Page limit: 6 pages (including references).

• Template: ACM Master Article Submission Templates, single column. Please follow the guideline here: https://chi2022.acm.org/for-authors/presenting/papers/chi-publication-formats/

• We are flexible about formatting.

WORKSHOP schedule

All times are in New Orleans, LA local time.

Virtual program - April 13, 2022

9 AM - 9:05 AM: Welcome and Introduction

9:05 AM - 10:00 AM: Opening keynote

Speaker: Rumee Ahmed, The University of British Columbia

Topic: The Secular Human in Human-Computer Interaction

10:00 AM -10:20 AM: Break

10:20 AM -10:50 AM: One minute talks

10:50 AM - 11:10 AM: Break (prompt question: How do you define “evil”?)

11:10 AM - 12:10 PM: Parallel breakout groups by religion (e.g., Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, Judaism, atheist, etc.)

Prompt questions: What specific issues might religion X raise for HCI research? What kind of HCI research might religion X inspire?

12:10 PM -1:00 PM: Lunch / optional interaction

Prompt Questions: What do you believe happens after we die? What led you to believe that? What implications does your belief have on how you behave in this life?

1:00 PM - 2:00 PM: Parallel breakout groups by cross-cutting topic (e.g,. death, gender, etc.)

Prompt questions: In what ways does religion impact topic Y, and how does that interact with HCI?

2:00 PM - 2:20 PM: Break

Prompt questions: What got you interested in academic research? What got you interested in HCI?

2:20 PM - 3:00 PM: Report out of breakout groups

3:00 PM - 4:00 PM: Panel. Panelist: Elizabeth Buie, Jessica Hammer, Kentaro Toyama, Joyojeet Pal, and Syed Ishtiaque Ahmed.

Hybrid program - April 30, 2022

Room # 292

9:00 AM- 9:05 AM: Introduction

9:05 AM - 10:20 AM: Closing Keynote

Speaker: Robert Geraci

Topic: Religious Values and the Culture of AI

10:20 AM - 11:00 AM: Break

Optional prompt question: How do you define “evil”?

11:00 AM - 11:40 AM: Parallel breakout groups by research methodology (e.g,. design, ethnography, etc.)

Prompt questions: Are there ways in which methodology X interacts with religion (or a specific religion)? In what ways might HCI need to evolve to take that into account?

11:45 AM - 12:20 PM: Parallel breakout groups by requests of the SIGCHI/research community (e.g,. events, accommodations for religious practices, paper reviewing, etc.)

Prompt questions: In what ways would we want to see the SIGCHI or the general HCI research community change, based on issues raised by religion (or non-religion)?

12:20 PM - 2:00 PM: Lunch

Optional prompt questions: What do you believe happens after we die? What led you to believe that? What implications does your belief have on how you behave in this life?

2:00 PM - 2:30 PM: Draft Outline of the Paper

2:30 PM - 3:20 PM: Writing session 1

3:20 PM - 4:00 PM: Break

Optional prompt questions: Have you ever had an “non-ordinary experience” [e.g., out of body experience, return-from-death experience, experience of oneness with something bigger, precognition, telepathy, etc.]? What was it like?

4:00 PM - 5:00 PM: Writing session 2

5:00 PM - 5:20 PM: Conclusion

How far did we get on the paper? What do we need to do from here?

Participation

Web-exclusive event: We will email the zoom link for joining the event the day before the workshop.

In-person/hybrid event: The details are coming soon.

Organizers