Accepted author manuscript, 427 KB, PDF document
Available under license: CC BY: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
Final published version
Research output: Contribution in Book/Report/Proceedings - With ISBN/ISSN › Conference contribution/Paper › peer-review
Research output: Contribution in Book/Report/Proceedings - With ISBN/ISSN › Conference contribution/Paper › peer-review
}
TY - GEN
T1 - "Remembering” as a Decolonial Praxis in African HCI and Design
AU - Adamu, Muhammad
AU - Nkwo, Makuochi
PY - 2023/11/27
Y1 - 2023/11/27
N2 - The fourth wave of HCI sought to engage with the ethics, politics, and values of design as an engine of modernity/coloniality. In doing so, we’ve witnessed a series of critiques and reflections on how the broadening of context and application in the third wave does not equate to any substantial structural changes in the ontologies and epistemologies informing HCI research and design. This can be attributed to the inevitable chaos of multiplicity inherent in HCI - and issues that we reckon could further implicate the efforts towards politicizing design as applied in the context of Africa. In this conceptual paper, we take the politics of design to another level by integrating distinct religious and sociopolitical practices across Africa in showing the colonizing dimension of the entirety of modern design enterprise. We argue that remembering the onomatopoeic dynamic of Amun-RA and the Ekumeku - both as theological thoughts and political praxis that are situated in African traditions - could provide a powerful instrument for ‘asking questions’ and ‘forming conversation’ on how technology can be developed and evaluated in/from African communities. Building on this year’s theme of ‘beyond limit’, this study showcases how decolonizing African design entails, on an abstract level, a decolonisation of the imagination. To go beyond colonially imposed limits in computing research and design, we ought to remember our histories and cultures clearly, there is a designerly power in remembering.
AB - The fourth wave of HCI sought to engage with the ethics, politics, and values of design as an engine of modernity/coloniality. In doing so, we’ve witnessed a series of critiques and reflections on how the broadening of context and application in the third wave does not equate to any substantial structural changes in the ontologies and epistemologies informing HCI research and design. This can be attributed to the inevitable chaos of multiplicity inherent in HCI - and issues that we reckon could further implicate the efforts towards politicizing design as applied in the context of Africa. In this conceptual paper, we take the politics of design to another level by integrating distinct religious and sociopolitical practices across Africa in showing the colonizing dimension of the entirety of modern design enterprise. We argue that remembering the onomatopoeic dynamic of Amun-RA and the Ekumeku - both as theological thoughts and political praxis that are situated in African traditions - could provide a powerful instrument for ‘asking questions’ and ‘forming conversation’ on how technology can be developed and evaluated in/from African communities. Building on this year’s theme of ‘beyond limit’, this study showcases how decolonizing African design entails, on an abstract level, a decolonisation of the imagination. To go beyond colonially imposed limits in computing research and design, we ought to remember our histories and cultures clearly, there is a designerly power in remembering.
U2 - 10.1145/3628096.3629045
DO - 10.1145/3628096.3629045
M3 - Conference contribution/Paper
T3 - Proceedings of the 4th African Human Computer Interaction Conference
SP - 118
EP - 124
BT - AfriCHI 2023
PB - ACM
CY - New York
T2 - 4th African Human Computer Interaction Conference: Beyond Limit.
Y2 - 27 November 2023 through 1 December 2023
ER -