Critique Needs Community: On a Humanities Approach to a Civics of Technology
By Marie K. Heath
Announcements
Next Monthly Tech Talk on Tuesday, 02/06/24. Join our monthly tech talks to discuss current events, articles, books, podcast, or whatever we choose related to technology and education. There is no agenda or schedule. Our next Tech Talk will be on Tuesday, February 6th, 2023 at 8-9pm EST/7-8pm CST/6-7pm MST/5-6pm PST. Learn more on our Events page and register to participate.
Spring Book Clubs Announcement!: We will hold three book clubs in spring 2024, including two of the books which most influenced our Civics of Tech project, and a new book sandwiched in between them. We often talk about how Neil Postman’s work influenced our ecological perspective and Ruha Benjamin’s work has influenced our critical perspective. Yet, we’ve never held book clubs to discuss either. We’re excited to return to those two classics and also dive into Joy Buolamwini’s highly anticipated new book. You can find all our book clubs on our Events page.
Register to join us on February 15th as we discuss Neil Postman’s classic, Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology;
Register to join us on March 21st as we discuss Joy Buolamwini’s new book, Unmasking AI: My Mission to Protect What is Human in a World of Machines.
Register to join us on April 25th as we discuss Ruha Benjamin’s instant classic, Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code.
Recently, Dan and I sat down with Dr. Juliane Jarke, Professor of Digital Societies at the University of Graz, Austria, and Dr. Felicitas Macgilchrist, Professor of Digital Education and Schooling at the University of Oldenburg and co-editor of Learning Media and Technology, to chat about envisioning more just technological futures. The conversation was part of an upcoming special issue in Post Digital Science and Education on designing postdigital futures, which Drs. Jarke and Macgilchrist are co-editing.
Juliane and Felicitas drafted thoughtful questions which resulted in reflective dialogue between all of us as we grappled with notions of community, imagined futures, and just and ethical technology use. Our conversation ended up being wide ranging, from the differences between the fields of ed tech in the U.S. and in Europe, to what it looks like to ground ed tech in humanities and sociological approaches, and the ways being classroom teachers influenced our scholarship and pedagogical practice.
We explored ethical approaches to technology, considering deontological considerations and consequentialism and debating the pros and cons (sorry, lame consequentialism joke!) of checklists. We also argued for ethics which include indigenous approaches to technology, as we turn to the work of indigenous scholars including Kim TallBear and Micheal Running Wolf as they talk about ownership, technology, and the materiality of objects, blood, bone, art, and language that ground a community.
We also wrestled with our own tendency to recoil from the word “design” especially as it pertains to design thinking. I found Felicitas and Juliane’s (2023) article on design thinking to provide language and theory to help me frame my own tendency to shy away from the word, as well as a way forward in design that resonated with my own commitments to small, community-centered, acts of care.
Finally, we closed the conversation with musings on what it is to, as Borgmann (1984) entreated, live a good life with technology. Dan noted,
Technology providers want us constantly on their technologies. They want our lives to be consumed by their tech. We can, however, choose to reassess our values. I think many of us want to be back in communion with other people in meaningful ways that move us towards a better world.
A huge thanks to Felicitas and Juliane for their time and labor on this piece. It is due to their thoughtful interview style that we were able to learn and reflect deeply through this dialogue. If you’d like to read the entire piece, please visit our Research Page. We’d love to hear your thoughts!
References
Borgmann, A. (1984). Technology and the Character of Contemporary Life: A Philosophical Inquiry. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Macgilchrist, F., Jarke, J., Allert, H., & Cerratto Pargman, T. (2023). Designing postdigital futures: Which designs? Whose futures? Postdigital Science and Education. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42438- 022- 00389-y.
TallBear, K. (2013). Native American DNA: Tribal Belonging and the False Promise of Genetic Science. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.