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I am yet again navel-gazing about HCI research www.frank.computer/blog/2026/09...

This is great, thanks for sharing your reflections! Worth noting that this is a growing community and literature about aligning HCI against reinforcing hegemonic power.

Thanks so much! And yes!! That paper in particular is on my shortlist of pieces that outline what real, concrete, material resistance could look like.

I am gentle about it in my blog post, but this kind of work has not really gained traction in industry HCI work. And this isn't to discredit the work in academic spaces, of course. But we need more academics to embed themselves in practitioner spaces so we can operationalize our theory.

Probably one of my favorite examples of this is Turkopticon by @gleemie.bsky.social because the contributions aren't just policies, guidelines, or methods interventions but explicitly sociotechnical. I love that we have this lineage in HCI. I want more! dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/...

For those not familiar (me), what does it mean to be “explicitly sociotechnical” mean?

Hah! Such a great question. I am being obtuse here, really. The reason "sociotechnical" as a term is helpful is typically because it opens the eyes of optimistic technology-builders to see and realize that their technologies (all technologies) are socially and culturally situated. (continued...)

Technology participates in, reinforces, and establishes social norms, laws, cultures, agendas, etc. Technology isn't neutral. "Sociotechnical" clarifies that the socio- part can't be separated from the -technical part. (See: Winner's classic "Do Artifacts have Politics?") (continued...)

In other words, I want the folks who recognize that "socio-" and "-technical" cannot be separated start actually building things. Too many papers make policy considerations, write guidelines, or imagine possibilities. I want to see real demonstrations and actual, working technologies. (continued...)

And this is why "Turkopticon" is a standout piece to me. It is a perfect example of a system that is explicitly aware of the social and political role it plays, but is also a real, practical, working system that is concretely demonstrative. It shows how it functions and makes real its ideas. (end)