Doing, being, thinking HCI otherwise at the end of the world as we know it

QC 20251121

Abstract

The global environmental crises continue to worsen, approaching irreversible thresholds. While much sustainability research focuses on policy, technological solutions and behaviour change interventions, the role of professionals—the people actually doing the work—remains largely unexplored as potential actors in sustainability transitions. This thesis addresses this gap by asking: how can Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) be practiced otherwise at the end of the world as we know it, to enable liveable futures?

Rather than asking what HCI as a field should do, I centre on HCI professionals themselves—researchers, practitioners, designers, educators, students—and our potential for agency in responding to what I term the socio-environmental predicament. This predicament encompasses interconnected environmental and social crises that cannot be "solved" but require thoughtful, situated responses. I have explored this question through first-person research grounded in my own experiences as a PhD student practicing HCI otherwise.

Through six papers, this thesis makes three contributions. First, I demonstrate the value of centring HCI professionals rather than HCI as a field, shifting from abstract calls for change to concrete possibilities for individual agency and responsibility. Second, I provide two practical resources: a framework for surfacing assumptions about sustainability in our work, and an application of the Two Loops model that identifies multiple sites of agency within both dominant and emerging systems. Third, I show what action-oriented second-order transition research can look like in HCI, demonstrating how such research can support transformations towards liveable futures.

My exploration reveals that meaningful responses include: 1) learning from communities that are already living with the knowledge and/or experience of collapse; 2) using and designing speculative methods to support desirable futuring; 3) engaging in action-oriented community-led work; and 4) paying attention to, promoting and hosting emotions and care in your interactions with others, in the face of uncertainty, complexity and loss. Ultimately, this thesis argues that the transition ahead requires us as HCI professionals to engage in critical reflexivity about our assumptions, values, and practices, and to find new ways of using our skills and positions in service of life and the living.

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