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HCI as heterodoxy: Technologies of identity and the queering of interaction with computers

This double-blind peer reviewed paper brings a new theoretical lens to designing digital tools by using Queer Theory (QT) to address long-standing tensions in how designers navigate the issue of social engineering in producing technologies that impact on identity. It does so by systematically showing, in theory and practice, how technologies can be designed to support future social values to evolve. As the first application of QT to tools of identity in the field of interaction design, it gives an introduction to post-modern understandings of identity and draws on Light’s three earlier papers that consider how we design for futures we cannot anticipate (and do not want to constrain), to connect in one account strands as diverse as feminist theory, history of computing, the Semantic Web, social media and literatures on subversion and performativity. Applying the lens of QT unifies disparate ethical and practical issues in designing for technologies of identity and subverts current wisdoms on information and communication technologies (ICTs) to produce 1) a commentary on the disciplines producing them, the ontologies supporting them and approaches to designing them, and 2) a comprehensive analysis of how to rethink design in the areas in which ICTs are being used, from entertainment to knowledge-construction. It was followed up with a co-authored paper showing the concepts outlined here working generatively in design research on social media (Light, A. and Coles-Kemp, L. (2013) 'Granddaughter Beware! An Intergenerational Case Study of Managing Trust Issues in the Use of Facebook', Proc. IEEE TRUST 2013), a double-blind peer reviewed international conference. The work has led to an invitation to submit a commentary chapter on Judith Butler’s work to the forthcoming collection on Critical Theory and Interaction Design (MIT Press, 2014).