A new to me paper (book chapter), "<Toward a Criti...
# linking-togethere
Eli Mellen
03/09/2026, 2:40 PMA new to me paper (book chapter), "Toward a Critical Technical Practice" from Philip A. Agre.
And then also, another paper that works to digest and clarify by exploring its use, "Critical Technical Practices as a Methodology for Values in Design" from Kirsten Boehner, Shay David, Joseph 'Jofish' Kaye and Phoebe Sengers
I was struck by these pieces because, if I had to say I'm anything (I don't) I'd probably claim to be a digital humanities person (I'm not); but I don't like digital humanities writ-large because as a practice it seems pretty clearly divided into "I wrote this code" or "I thought really hard about this code" where those 2 things are mutually exclusive acts. Critical Technical Practice suggests a way to do both and that both are actually both. Both. Both at the same time...because they're kinda the same thing.
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Eli Mellen
03/09/2026, 2:49 PMA more cogent description of Critical Technical Practice, from "Critical Technical Practices as a Methodology for Values in Design"
CTP is outlined by Phil Agre in his 1997 book Computation and Human Experience. He proposes using insights from a field that provides critical reflection to question the core metaphors of a technical field, and thereby overcome recurrent technical impasses in that field. Briefly, CTP consists of the following moves: identifying the core metaphors of the field, noticing what, when working within those metaphors, remains marginalized, inverting the dominant metaphors to bring that margin to the center, and embodying the alternative as a new technology. It is important to note that during this process, the values embodied by the field can be questioned and shifted.
Eli Mellen
03/09/2026, 2:53 PMthis really jives with me, because in my work ensuring that technical systems folks are obligated by law to interact with are as accessible as possible I often advocate for participatory design, and similar practices that center the voices of the folks most marginalized by the technology itself.
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Jasmine Otto
04/14/2026, 10:04 PMyes, and Phoebe Sengers' work on reflective design is fabulous ammunition for this work
Jasmine Otto
04/14/2026, 10:08 PMhttps://research.cs.vt.edu/ns/cs5724papers/3paradigms.pdf
> We demonstrate that many of these approaches [in HCI other than human factors or cognitive science] can be usefully understood as united in a coherent third wave or paradigm we term situated perspectives, which treats interaction as a form of meaning making in which the artifact and its context are mutually defining and subject to multiple interpretations.
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Jasmine Otto
04/14/2026, 10:10 PMharrison, tatar, and sengers 2007
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Eli Mellen
04/14/2026, 10:11 PMOMFG! This is also so so so aligned with Kristine Jørgensen’s Gameworld Interfaces, too!
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Jasmine Otto
04/14/2026, 10:46 PMooh, good call. I want to hold it up against Doris Rusch's Making Deep Games (2017) and see what falls out. metaphors are slippery but interfaces are merely under-theorized
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Eli Mellen
04/14/2026, 10:59 PM(crying, clapping)