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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
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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.

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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

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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/).

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