HCI within cross-cultural discourses of globally situated rhetorical and etymological interactions

Abstract

About forty years of thriving Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) have expanded into an affluent and apparent diverse and enriching field-for-all. Subsequently this has given way to other fields such as Human-Work Interaction Design (HWID), where a main focus stands on human-centred practices at work regarding productivity and the final fulfilment of humanly aims and goals. This is in stark contrast with other ways of accepting the world, thus of work. HCI for Development (HCI4D) often shows interdependences proposed in the Global North often fail in settings like in the East or also in the Global South. This is while technology permeates at rapid and unstoppable paces everywhere. If HCI4D thus-far shows scant positive results, traditional HWID is seemingly stagnated into modes of production having little to do with promoting actual satisfaction, nor environmental sustainability, to mention a few further options. As younger, novice participants enter academic and practitioner HCI grounds, concepts, definitions and terminology resemble confusion at times, while in occasions these appear to depict archaic modes of distribution, self-empowerment and development as inevitable in today’s technologically connected world. Questioning thus existing globalised status-quos related to concepts, definitions and deployments sparks into proposing fairer, more sustainable and micro-cultural approaches to life via and by HCI. To achieve the above, the disentanglement of established meanings through the dissemination of objects, concepts and HCI definitions and terminologies is proposed by applying a theoretical and a pragmatic analysis. This is done with the aim of shedding clarity via reflection and comprehension into mindfulness of ethical and integral possibilities. This paper presents, proposes and discusses an approach to concepts and words in everyday life such as work, interaction and development, as seen from a myriad of cultural perspectives, cases and understandings. The ultimate objective is to keep discerning past, present and future meanings in HCI, and the connotations of such commonly used terms and expressions.