AI Chat Paper
Note: Please note that the following content is generated by AMiner AI. SciOpen does not take any responsibility related to this content.
{{lang === 'zh_CN' ? '文章概述' : 'Summary'}}
{{lang === 'en_US' ? '中' : 'Eng'}}
Chat more with AI
PDF (1 MB)
Collect
Submit Manuscript AI Chat Paper
Show Outline
Outline
Show full outline
Hide outline
Outline
Show full outline
Hide outline
Open Access

Critical Technical Awakenings

School of Social Work, McGill University, Montréal, H3A 0G4, Canada
Institute in Critical Quantitative, Computational, & Mixed Methodologies, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA
Show Author Information

Abstract

Starting with Philip E. Agre’s 1997 essay on “critical technical practice”, we consider examples of writings from computer science where authors describe “waking up” from a previously narrow technical approach to the world, enabling them to recognize how their previous efforts towards social change had been ineffective. We use these examples first to talk about the underlying assumptions of a technology-centric approach to social problems, and second to theorize these awakenings in terms of Paulo Freire’s idea of critical consciousness. Specifically, understanding these awakenings among technical practitioners as examples of this more general phenomenon gives guidance for how we might encourage and guide critical awakenings in order to get more technologists working effectively towards positive social change.

References

1
P. E. Agre, Toward a critical technical practice: Lessons learned in trying to reform AI, in Bridging the Great Divide: Social Science, Technical Systems, and Cooperative Work, G. Bowker, L. Star, B. Turner, and L. Gasser, eds. Mahwah, NJ, USA: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc., 1997, pp. 131–157.
2
B. Green, The contestation of tech ethics: A sociotechnical approach to technology ethics in practice, Journal of Social Computing, doi: 10.23919/JSC.2021.0018.
3
L. Hu, Tech ethics: Speaking ethics to power, or power speaking ethics? Journal of Social Computing, doi: 10.23919/JSC.2021.0033.
4
S. B. Merriam and L. M. Baumgartner, Transformational learning, in Learning in Adulthood: A Comprehensive Guide, 4th edition, S. B. Merriam and L. M. Baumgartner, eds. Hoboken, NJ, USA: Wiley, 2020, pp. 166–195.
5
D. A. Henhawk, My critical awakening: A process of struggles and decolonizing hope, International Review of Qualitative Research, doi: 10.1525/irqr.2013.6.4.510.
6
J. Prada, The critical awakening of a pre-service teacher in a Spanish graduate program: A phenomenology of translanguaging as pedagogy and as content, International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, doi: 10.1080/13670050.2021.1881945.
7
E. G. Guba and Y. S. Lincoln, Paradigmatic controversies, contradictions, and emerging confluences, in The SAGE Handbook of Qualitative Research, N. K. Denzin and Y. S. Lincoln, eds. London, UK: SAGE, 2005, pp. 191–215.
8
B. Green, Data science as political action: Grounding data science in a politics of justice, Journal of Social Computing, doi: 10.23919/JSC.2021.0029.
9
M. L. Jones, How we became instrumentalists (again): Data positivism since World War II, Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences, doi: 10.1525/hsns.2018.48.5.673.
10
E. Morozov, To Save Everything, Click Here: The Folly of Technological Solutionism. New York, NY, USA: Public Affairs, 2013.
11
K. Toyama, Geek Heresy: Rescuing Social Change from the Cult of Technology. New York, NY, USA: Public Affairs, 2015.
12
M. Broussard, Artificial Unintelligence: How Computers Misunderstand the World. Cambridge, MA, USA: MIT Press, 2018.https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/11022.001.0001
13
B. Green, The Smart Enough City: Putting Technology in Its Place to Reclaim Our Urban Future. Cambridge, MA, USA: MIT Press, 2019.https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/11555.001.0001
14
J. Bricmont and A. Sokal, Science and sociology of science: Beyond war and peace, in The One Culture? A Conversation about Science, J. A. Labinger and H. Collins, eds. Chicago, IL, USA: The University of Chicago Press, 2001, pp. 27–47.https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226467245.003.0003
15
T. M. Porter, Thin description: Surface and depth in science and science studies, Osiris, doi: 10.1086/667828.
16
G. Edmond and D. Mercer, Anti-social epistemologies, Social Studies of Science, doi: 10.1177/0306312706067900.
17
M. Lynch, From ruse to farce, Social Studies of Science, doi: 10.1177/0306312706067897.
18
M. Nanda, Prophets Facing Backward: Postmodern Critiques of Science and Hindu Nationalism in India. New Brunswick, NJ, USA: Rutgers University Press, 2003.
19
H. M. Collins, Son of seven sexes: The social destruction of a physical phenomenon, Social Studies of Science, doi: 10.1177/030631278101100103.
20
T. H. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 3rd ed. Chicago, IL, USA: The University of Chicago Press, 1996.
21
P. Rogaway, The moral character of cryptographic work, https://web.cs.ucdavis.edu/~rogaway/papers/moral-fn.pdf, 2015.
22
D. J. Watts, The “new” science of networks, Annual Review of Sociology, doi: 10.1146/annurev.soc.30.020404.104342.
23
C. A. Hidalgo, Disconnected, fragmented, or united? A trans-disciplinary review of network science, Applied Network Science, doi: 10.1007/s41109-016-0010-3.
24
H. Wallach, Computational social science ≠ computer science + social data, Communications of the ACM, doi: 10.1145/3132698.
25
H. Wallach, Navigating the broader impacts of machine learning research, Medium, https://hannawallach.medium.com/navigating-the-broader-impacts-of-machine-learning-research-f2d72a37a5b, 2021.
26
S. E. Toulmin, Does the distinction between normal and revolutionary science hold water? in Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge, I. Lakatos and A. Musgrave, eds. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1970, pp. 39–48.https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139171434.005
27
J. Mezirow, Perspective transformation, Adult Education Quarterly, doi: 10.1177/074171367802800202.
28
J. Mezirow, Learning to think like an adult: Core concepts of transformation theory, in The Handbook of Transformative Learning: Theory, Research and Practice, E. W. Taylor and P. Cranton, eds. San Francisco, CA, USA: Jossey-Bass, 2012, pp. 73–95.
29
E. W. Taylor, Building upon the theoretical debate: A critical review of the empirical studies of Mezirow’s transformative learning theory, Adult Education Quarterly, doi: 10.1177/074171369704800104.
30
V. Sheared, Giving voice: An inclusive model of instruction—a womanist perspective, New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education, doi: 10.1002/ace.36719946105.
31
E. W. Taylor, Making meaning of the varied and contested perspectives of transformative learning, in Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Transformative Learning, D. Vlosak, G. Kielbaso, and J. Radford, eds. East Lansing, MI, USA: Michigan State University, 2005, pp. 459–464.
32
E. W. Taylor and M. J. Snyder, A critical review of research on transformative learning theory, 2006–2010, in The Handbook of Transformative Learning: Theory, Research and Practice, E. W. Taylor and P. Cranton, eds. San Francisco, CA, USA: Jossey-Bass, 2012, pp. 37–55.
33
J. Mezirow, A critical theory of adult learning and education, Adult Education Quarterly, doi: 10.1177/074171368103200101.
34
A. Jemal, Critical consciousness: A critique and critical analysis of the literature, The Urban Review, doi: 10.1007/s11256-017-0411-3.
35
P. Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York, NY, USA: Continuum, 1970.
36
S. B. Merriam and G. Ntseane, Transformational learning in Botswana: How culture shapes the process, Adult Education Quarterly, doi: 10.1177/0741713608314087.
37
J. Johnson-Bailey, Sistahs in College: Making a Way Out of No Way. Malabar, FL, USA: Krieger Publishing, 2001.
38
B. Christian, The race for theory, Cultural Critique, doi: 10.2307/1354255.
39
H. Trbušić, Engineering in the community: Critical consciousness and engineering education, Interdisciplinary Description of Complex Systems, doi: 10.7906/indecs.12.2.1.
40
A. Boal, Theatre of the Oppressed. New York, NY, USA: Theatre Communications Group, 1993.
41
K. Jokikokko, The role of significant others in the intercultural learning of teachers, Journal of Research in International Education, doi: 10.1177/1475240909105202.https://doi.org/10.1177/1475240909105202
42

B. de Sousa Santos, Public sphere and epistemologies of the South, Africa Development, vol. 37, no. 1, pp. 43–67, 2012.

43
B. de Sousa Santos, Epistemologies of the South: Justice Against Epistemicide. New York, NY, USA: Routledge, 2014.
44
S. Wynter, No humans involved: An open letter to my colleagues, in Forum N. H. I. : Knowledge for the 21st Century. Stanford, CA, USA: Giant Horse, Inc., 1994, pp. 42–71.
45
S. Wynter, Unsettling the coloniality of being/power/truth/freedom: Towards the human, after man, its overrepresentation—an argument, CR: The New Centennial Review, doi: 10.1353/ncr.2004.0015.
46
B. Rusert, Fugitive Science: Empiricism and Freedom in Early African American Culture. New York, NY, USA: NYU Press, 2017.https://doi.org/10.18574/nyu/9781479885688.001.0001
47
M. Graham, The ethics of care, Black women and the social professions: Implications of a new analysis, Ethics and Social Welfare, doi: 10.1080/17496530701450372.
48
L. Bass, Fostering an ethic of care in leadership: A conversation with five African American women, Advances in Developing Human Resources, doi: 10.1177/1523422309352075.
49
O. Hankivsky, Rethinking care ethics: On the promise and potential of an intersectional analysis, American Political Science Review, doi: 10.1017/S0003055414000094.
50
P. Raghuram, Race and feminist care ethics: Intersectionality as method, Gender, Place & Culture, doi: 10.1080/0966369X.2019.1567471.
51
M. Lane, “For real love”: How Black girls benefit from a politicized ethic of care, International Journal of Education Reform, doi: 10.1177/105678791802700303.
52
L. Bass, When care trumps justice: The operationalization of Black feminist caring in educational leadership, International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, doi: 10.1080/09518398.2011.647721.
53
b. hooks, Love as the practice of freedom, in Outlaw Culture: Resisting Representations. b. hooks, ed. New York, NY, USA: Routledge, 1994, pp. 243–250.
54
b. hooks, All About Love: New Visions. New York, NY, USA: Harper, 2000.
55
P. H. Collins, Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment, 2nd ed. New York, NY, USA: Routledge, 2000.
56
A. D. Selbst, d. m. boyd, S. A. Friedler, S. Venkatasubramanian, and J. Vertesi, Fairness and abstraction in sociotechnical systems, in Proceedings of the Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency (FAT* ’19), Atlanta, GA, USA, 2019, pp. 59–68.https://doi.org/10.1145/3287560.3287598
57
E. J. Dixon-Román, Diffractive possibilities: Cultural studies and quantification, Transforming Anthropology, doi: 10.1111/traa.12074.
58

J. Masís, Making AI philosophical again: On Philip E. Agre’s legacy, Continent, vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 58–70, 2014.

59
P. Sengers and G. Hertz, Critical technical practice and critical making: Phoebe Sengers in conversation with Garnet Hertz, in Conversations in Critical Making, G. Hertz, ed. CTheory Books, 2015, pp. 9–20.
60
K. Boehner, S. David, J. Kaye, and P. Sengers, Critical technical practice as a methodology for values in design, presented at CHI 2005 Workshop on Quality, Values, and Choices, Portland, OR, USA, 2005.
61
P. Dourish, J. Finlay, P. Sengers, and P. Wright, Reflective HCI: Towards a critical technical practice, presented at CHI ’04 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems, Vienna, Austria, 2004.https://doi.org/10.1145/985921.986203
62
R. Albergotti, He predicted the dark side of the Internet 30 years ago. Why did no one listen? Philip Agre, a computer scientist turned humanities professor, was prescient about many of the ways technology would impact the world, Washington Post, Aug 2021.
63
L. Stark, Apologos: A lightweight design method for sociotechnical inquiry, Journal of Social Computing, doi: 10.23919/JSC.2021.0028.
64
J. U. Korn, Connecting race to ethics related to technology: A call for critical tech ethics, Journal of Social Computing, doi: 10.23919/JSC.2021.0026.
65

R. Ochigame, Informatics of the oppressed, Logic, vol. 11, pp. 53–74, 2020.

66
K. Mayer and M. M. Malik, Critical data scientists at work: Summary report of the ICWSM-2019 Workshop on Critical Data Science, presented at the Thirteenth International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media (ICWSM-2019), Munich, Germany, 2019.
67
G. Payne and J. Payne, Positivism and realism, in Key Concepts in Social Research. London, UK: SAGE Publications, 2004, pp. 171–174.https://doi.org/10.4135/9781849209397
68
R. Rabaka, Forms of Fanonism: Frantz Fanon’s Critical Theory and the Dialectics of Decolonization. Lanham, MD, USA: Lexington Books, 2011.
69
B. Fay, Critical Social Science: Liberation and Its Limits. Ithaca, NY, USA: Cornell University Press, 1987.
70
B. Barnes and D. Bloor, Relativism, rationalism and the sociology of knowledge, in Rationality and Relativism, M. Hollis and S. Lukes, eds. Oxford, UK: Basil Blackwell, 1982, pp. 21–47.
71
S. Shapin and S. Schaffer, Leviathan and the Air-Pump: Hobbes, Boyle, and the Experimental Life. Princeton, NJ, USA: Princeton University Press, 1985.
72
L. S. Clark, Critical theory and constructivism, Media, Culture and Meaning site, Center for Mass Media, School of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Colorado, https://web.archive.org/web/20051201184243/http://www.colorado.edu/journalism/mcm/qmr-crit-theory.htm, 1999.
73
I. Hacking, The Social Construction of What? Cambridge, MA, USA: Harvard University Press, 1999.
74
P. E. Agre, Notes and recommendations for 12 July 2000, Red Rock Eater Newsletter, https://pages.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/agre/notes/00-7-12.html, 2000.
75
L. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations. Oxford, UK: Wiley-Blackwell, 1953.
76
O. H. Jara, Popular education and social change in Latin America, Community Development Journal, doi: 10.1093/cdj/bsq022.
77
L. Kane, Popular Education and Social Change in Latin America. London, UK: Latin American Bureau, 2001.https://doi.org/10.3362/9781909014848
78
L. A. Hadfield, Liberation and Development: Black Consciousness Community Programs in South Africa. East Lansing, MI, USA: Michigan State University Press, 2016
79
F. Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks. New York, NY, USA: Grove Press, 1952.
80
N. C. Gibson, ed., Decolonizing Madness: The Psychiatric Writings of Frantz Fanon. New York, NY, USA: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014.
81
N. C. Gibson, Decolonizing madness: The psychiatric writings of Frantz Fanon, in Fanon, Phenomenology, and Psychology, L. Laubscher, D. Hook, and M. U. Desai, eds. New York, NY, USA: Routledge, 2021.https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003037132-3
82
P. Freire, Education for Critical Consciousness. New York, NY, USA: Seabury Press, 1974.
83
P. Freire, Education, the Practice of Freedom. London, UK: Writers and Readers Publishing Cooperative, 1976.
84
T. J. L. Belle, From consciousness raising to popular education in Latin America and the Caribbean, Comparative Education Review, doi: 10.1086/446677.https://doi.org/10.1086/446677
85
K. Sarachild, Consciousness-raising: A radical weapon, in Feminist evolution, K. Sarachild, ed. New York, NY, USA: Random House, 1978, pp. 144–150.
86
A. Darder, Conscientizaçao: Awakening critical consciousness, in Freire and Education, A. Darder, ed. New York, NY, USA: Routledge, 2015, pp. 80–132.https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203109021
87
J. Cammarota and M. Fine, Revolutionizing Education: Youth Participatory Action Research. New York, NY, USA: Routledge, 2007.
88
N. Wallerstein and B. Duran, The theoretical, historical, and practice roots of CBPR, in Community-Based Participatory Research for Health: Advancing Social and Health Equity, N. Wallerstein, B. Duran, J. Oetzel, and M. Minkler, eds. San Francisco, CA, USA: Jossey Bass, 2008, pp. 25–46.
89
P. C. Salzman, On reflexivity, American Anthropologist, doi: 10.1525/aa.2002.104.3.805.
90
J. Heron and P. Reason, A participatory inquiry paradigm, Qualitative Inquiry, doi: 10.1177/107780049700300302.
91
F. Baum, C. MacDougall, and D. Smith, Participatory action research, Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, doi: 10.1136/jech.2004.028662.
Journal of Social Computing
Pages 365-384
Cite this article:
Malik M, Malik MM. Critical Technical Awakenings. Journal of Social Computing, 2021, 2(4): 365-384. https://doi.org/10.23919/JSC.2021.0035

1075

Views

752

Downloads

8

Crossref

9

Scopus

Altmetrics

Received: 20 May 2021
Revised: 07 December 2021
Accepted: 08 December 2021
Published: 30 January 2022
© The author(s) 2021

The articles published in this open access journal are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

Return