Body Politics: Unpacking Tensions and Future Perspectives for Body-Centric Design Research in HCI

Human bodies are deeply political as they carry historical and social meanings, including race, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, class, and abilities. The expanding body-centric research in HCI can be traced in the plurality of methods, theories and domains that take bodies as a central point of departure, when designing or studying interaction with technologies. This one-day workshop will bring together researchers and practitioners within the CHI community to discuss, map, and unpack emerging tensions and challenges on the topic of body politics for HCI. Interested participants are invited to submit examples from their own research, which, in the workshop, will be used as a point of departure to critically reflect on and expand body-centric methods, theories and domains through the lens of body politics. Workshop outcomes will include charting future directions for body-centric research to address challenges and opportunities of acknowledging that bodies are always political in design research.