Doing responsibilities in entangled worlds

Abstract

In this article, we locate and trace responsibility from a posthuman standpoint. We start by reviewing philosophical origins of responsibility and depict views of responsibility in HCI and Interaction Design. Arguing that prevalent notions of responsibility fall short in covering the complexity of realities that are not least a consequence of entanglements of humans with emerging technologies, we make use of posthumanist perspectives (in particular actor-network theory, agential realism and postphenomenology) to rethink where responsibilities sit or are enacted within hybrid assemblages of relations. Considering responsibility as “being done” within such assemblages allows to understand it as something fluid, rooted in relations rather than entities, and being temporally dispersed, responsibility starts within different milieus of innovation, is found in design practice as well as in use and appropriation. We discuss how the notion of doing responsibilities can serve different purposes, such as looking at how change is induced within an assemblage, and conclude by sketching methodological, theoretical, and designerly consequences.