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Efficiency and Care in Community-led Initiatives

Published: 18 October 2021 Publication History

Abstract

This paper illustrates the multifaceted aspects of caring practices, and the ways they are entangled with the organizing of community-driven initiatives. Highlighting the situated inter-dependencies between concerns for care and efficiency, and considering caring practices as essential to the practical work that makes communities work, we reflect on how caring and efficiency rationalities frame the use, and scope the design of digital technologies. Drawing on two cases, the analysis shows the ways in which digital technologies oftentimes overshadow communities' key concerns for care, and how attempts to design for community settings can result in anti-designs, that is sociotechnical configurations that can disrupt caring practices. The contribution of the paper is twofold: first, an analysis of the different configurations of caring and efficiency and, second, a focus on care in the design and appropriation of technologies into this space.

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cover image Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction
Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction  Volume 5, Issue CSCW2
CSCW2
October 2021
5376 pages
EISSN:2573-0142
DOI:10.1145/3493286
Issue’s Table of Contents
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Published: 18 October 2021
Published in PACMHCI Volume 5, Issue CSCW2

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  1. anti-designs
  2. caring
  3. community-driven initiatives
  4. qualitative studies
  5. technology appropriation

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