pluralism@CSCW

The 26th ACM Conference On Computer-Supported Cooperative Work And Social Computing (CSCW 2023), Minneapolis, MN, USA

October 14, 2023

ABOUT THE WORKSHOP

Although CSCW has shown a strong interest in diversity and inclusion, the literature predominantly reflects ethics rooted in Western universalism, modernism, scientism, and Euro-centrism. Consequently, CSCW theories and practices tend to marginalize millions of people worldwide whose ethical perspectives do not align with the narrow focus of ethics and values within CSCW. In an effort to embrace ethical pluralism within CSCW, we propose a day-long hybrid workshop in CSCW and invite researchers and practitioners to initiate conversations centered around three themes: (a) foregrounding ethical diversities, (b) adapting diverse ethics, and (c) addressing challenges, barriers, and limitations associated with incorporating plural ethics into CSCW. Through this workshop, we aim to bring together CSCW scholars and practitioners, fostering a community that advocates for and advances the cause of pluralism in socio-technical systems.

CALL FOR PAPERS

Despite a strong interest in diversity and inclusion, the CSCW community has marginally engaged with pluralism. In our day-long hybrid workshop, we will explore the opportunities and challenges of recognizing and adapting diverse ethics in CSCW theories and practices. We invite interested researchers and practitioners to submit a position paper under the following themes:

Foregrounding ethical diversities: Identifying the systems of ethics that are marginalized in CSCW research, theories, and practices and underlining the importance of elevating those in CSCW.
Adaptation of diverse ethics: Reflect on and propose ways in which future work in the CSCW community can adapt and accommodate for coexistence of diverse ethical paradigms.
Challenges, barriers, and limits of adapting plural ethics in CSCW: What might be some pressing challenges of adopting pluralism in CSCW. What might be some negative consequences of adopting pluralism in sociotechnical systems?

SUBMISSION DETAILS

Important Dates

First round submission deadline: August 15 , 2023
First round decision notification: August 20, 2023

Second round submission deadline: October 6, 2023
Second round decision notification: October 8, 2023

Submission Details

Follow this link for the submission details.

Suggested Formatting

Page limit: 2-6 pages (including references).
Template: ACM Master Article Submission Templates, single column.
We are flexible about formatting.

WORKSHOP SCHEDULE

(All times are in Minneapolis, MN, local time)

Room: Lake Harriet

9:00 - 9:10

Opening Remarks

9:10 - 9:40

Brainstorming session: definition of pluralism

Michael Muller opens this session to build community agreement/norms
Participant brings a short (5-sentence) response to the questions, “What pluralism means to you?”

9:40 - 10:15

Brainstorming continues!

10:15 - 10:45

Coffee Break

Location: Great Lakes Promenade

10:45 - 12:00

Lightning talks

Participants prepare for a 3-minute long presentation followed by a Q&A for 2 mins

12:00 - 13:00

Lunch break

13:00 - 13:30

Discussing the themes and framing of a potential ACM Interactions article

Organizers bring an initial framing with three themes. Participants discuss and edit collaboratively.

13:30 - 14:00

Collaborative Writing 1

14:00 - 14:30

Collaborative Writing 2

14:30 - 15:00

Coffee Break

Location: Great Lakes Promenade

15:00 - 15:40

Debriefing the writing output

Co-create a reading list that has influenced participants’ intellectual thinking about pluralism.

15:40 - 16:00

Closing Remarks

Possibility of publishing a special Issue in the ACM Interactions with selected papers
Aggregating and publishing the workshop output
Staying connected

PARTICIPATION

For Remote Participants: We will email the Zoom link for joining the event the day before the workshop.

For In-person/Hybrid Participants: The details are coming soon.

MEET THE ORGANIZERS

Mohammad Rashidujjaman Rifat

is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Computer Science, a Schwartz Reisman Institute Graduate Fellow, and a doctoral collaborative specialization student in the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at the University of Toronto. His research is at the intersection of computation and faith. Rifat conducts qualitative, computational, and design research to explore faith-based ethics, rationality, and politics; and designs technologies to mitigate faith-based intolerance and make technologies inclusive of plural ethics.

Ayesha Bhimdiwala

is a Ph.D. student in the School of Information at the University of Texas at Austin. Her research interests are primarily focused on Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and Design. She is currently studying how we might approach, understand, and respond to faith- and gender-based oppression in digital spaces and reimagine the design of digital spaces.

Ananya Bhattacharjee

is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Toronto. His research focuses on building technology to help people manage mental health. He conducts research in different social and cultural backgrounds: he has collaborated with Mental Health America to understand users’ needs and design interventions accordingly; he conducted field studies in Bangladesh to understand the alignment between existing mental health technologies and local people’s customs and values. His research works have been published in top venues like CHI, CSCW, TOCHI, and JMIR.

Amna Batool

is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Michigan School of Information specializing in Human Computer Interaction (HCI) and Information and Communication Technologies for Development (ICTD) with a focus on improving women’s privacy, health, and adaptation needs in low-resource settings. Her work incorporates feminist, cultural, and intersectionality theories, utilizing contextual inquiries and system design. Currently, she’s collaborating with law enforcement agencies to mitigate the impact of non-consensual disclosures of women’s information on social media platforms in South Asian communities.

Dipto Das

is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Information Science at the University of Colorado Boulder. His research interest lies at the intersection of human-computer interaction and social computing. Drawing on decolonial and postcolonial perspectives, he studies the identity expression and technology practices of the multi-dimensionally marginalized communities in the Global South.

Nusrat Jahan Mim

is a Doctor of Design Candidate at the Graduate School of Design, Harvard University. Her work draws upon cutting-edge critical literature in Urban Design Politics around Faith and Informalities and addresses the contemporary struggles of marginalized communities within the globalized projects of modernization, urbanization, and digitization.

Abdullah Hasan Safir

is a Research Assistant at LCFI, University of Cambridge whose current research interest lies in reimagining AI particularly from the Global South perspectives. He has recently finished his Master’s in Digital Media and Culture from the University of Warwick with Commonwealth Scholarship, achieved distinctions and was awarded for his academic excellence. His previous publications engage with design and development issues at the intersection of digital technologies and their implications on Rohingya refugees and Internally Displaced Populations in Bangladesh.

Sharifa Sultana

is an Assistant Professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and a Facebook Fellow. Her research focuses on the rural Bangladeshi population. She is interested in understanding how religious, spiritual and faith-based practices connect to the wellbeing of people in rural Bangladesh and other similar communities, and how technology plays a role in this.

Taslima Akter

is a Postdoctoral researcher in the department of Informatics at University of California Irvine. Her research is centered on gaining an understanding of the accessibility and privacy hurdles that individuals with disabilities face. In her work, she has delved into the privacy requirements of a variety of marginalized groups such as those with visual impairments, racial minorities, and ROTC students. Furthermore, she is currently engaged in designing systems that take privacy into account for these groups.

C. Estelle Smith

is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the Colorado School of Mines. Dr. Smith’s research focuses on building a new area of Human-Computer Interaction in Computational Spiritual Support (see bit.ly/sacredtech). This requires a pluralist perspective honoring both the diversity of users’ religious, spiritual, or faith-based beliefs, and the central importance of these beliefs in relation to their health, wellness, and use of sociotechnical systems.

Bryan Semaan

is an Associate Professor in the Department of Information Science at the University of Colorado Boulder. His research examines the role of Information and Communication Technologies in enabling resilience amongst people immersed in challenging contexts (e.g. people’s experiences with racism). His work draws on critical perspectives (e.g. decolonial and feminist) to create just and equitable sociotechnical systems.

Robert Soden

is an Assistant Professor at the University of Toronto working on climate informatics, human centered computing (HCC), and science and technology studies (STS). His research uses a range of ethnographic, participatory, and design research methods to evaluate and improve the technologies we use to understand and respond to environmental challenges like disasters and climate change.

Michael Muller

works in the role of Senior Research Scientist in IBM Research on the historical and contemporary lands of the Wampanoag and Massachusetts peoples (known to settler-colonists as Cambridge MA USA). He works in a hybrid area of HCI, AI, collaboration, and social justice, with a current focus on generative AI. Michael co-proposed the CHI subcommittee on Critical and Sustainable Computing and Social Justice. He co-chairs SIGCHI CARES, and is a member of Fempower.tech.

Shaimaa Lazem

is an Associate Research Professor at the City of Scientific Research and Technology Applications, Egypt. Her research interests include participatory design, decolonising HCI, and cross-cultural collaborations. She co-founded ArabHCI in 2016, and is currently working on designing and deploying an innovative curriculum on Responsible Human-Centered AI for African AI start-ups as part of a Google Research for Inclusion and Google AI awards.

Syed Ishtiaque Ahmed

is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at University of Toronto. He conducts research in the intersection between Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and Information and Communication Technology and Development (ICTD). He received his Ph.D. in Information Science from Cornell University in 2017. He established the first HCI research lab in Bangladesh in 2009, and still maintains it. His research work is built around the concept of ‘voice’ that connects various branches of political philosophy to technology intervention. His current research focuses on the politics of faith and justification in computing.

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