The Politics of Imaginaries: Probing Humanistic Inquiry in HCI.

Over the past few decades, human-computer interaction (HCI) and interaction design (IxD) scholars have embraced humanistic traditions to cultivate new modes of inquiry: widening examinations of technology's social constitution, from affective computing [10], aesthetic interaction [4], and experience design [23] to critical race theory [28], post-colonial computing [19], and "the more-than-human turn" [27]. Today, with mounting political and environmental crises, scholars increasingly turn to humanistic inquiry to emphasize the necessity of both critical and imaginative encounters. This work often involves recognizing and reworking systemic inequities baked into the practices, policies, and governance structures associated with computing worlds. The goal of this one-day workshop is to bring together scholars, practitioners, and makers working across HCI and the humanities to develop a concern for the politics of imaginaries. We explore technopolitical imaginaries as the creative connections drawn between past, present, and future possibilities that shape computing development. Across discussions and hands-on activities, we seek to lay the foundation for a broader conversation on the stakes of a humanistic imagination and how HCI might learn from its optimisms without shying away from the necessity of its pessimisms.