I can’t get to ICT4S this year, but I’m there in spirit – where “spirit” means in comic form, courtesy of Aksel and Oliver’s Zine Liminal Excavations. This was a lot of fun to put together with Mawera.
Enjoy, and let us know what you think.
There’s an accessible version below the images. I give the exercise of writing this description five stars. It forces you to really think about not just what each image shows, but how you want it to be read.
Accessible version:
Re-indigenise Re-generate Computing
By: Samuel Mann of Otago Polytechnic and Mawera Karetai of the University of Otago.
Contents:
Computing and Colonisation are inherently intertwined
Re-tell Indigenous stories as computing stories
Productive possibilities of difference.
[Image description: this is a three-page visual, in a comic book style. The characters are hand-drawn stick figures with rectangularish torsos. The characters representing colonisers have square heads, while the colonised people have round heads. The colonisers are blue, and this colour is used to highlight colonising relationships with splatter and arrows.]
Page 1: Computing and Colonisation are inherently intertwined
The title is presented in a large comic font, with the “Re” spanning both “indigenise” and “generate” before coming back together for “computing”.
The page is arranged in two unframed columns. The left column is headed “Structural Colonisation”, and the right is headed “Technological Colonisation”.
The top left is a tableau of a round-head and a square-head signing a treaty on a desk – this scene is styled on paintings of the signing of New Zealand’s Tiriti o Waitangi or Treaty of Waitangi. There is a tall flagpole with a large flag with a blue square. The round-head is holding a taonga or treasure. They have a thought bubble showing maramataka or the phases of the moon. The square-head is holding a musket. Their thought bubble shows a table of information (it was intended as a calendar – but got too small).
Below the Tiriti-signing scene, an arrow from the square-head side leads to a scene where two square-heads dance on an elevated rectangular platform reminiscent of the table in the thought bubble. A round-head is trying unsuccessfully to climb onto the platform, while another dejectedly sits on the ground. The text reads “Structures to benefit of colonisers’ system”.
Below that scene, two round-heads carry a square-head on a raised sedan chair whose design can only carry squares. The text reads “Physical world of inherited bias and unconscious racism”.
At the top of the right hand “Technological Colonisation” column, some text reads “assumption that solutions only come from the centre”. A blue square is surrounded by another blue square containing some small squares. Some small circles are outside this box. An arrow comes from the centre of the box, curving down towards the next element.
A conveyor belt with a square machine in the middle takes in different shapes – a circle, triangle, and flower – and outputs square blue boxes. The machine is connected by arrows to the square-head’s thought bubble (from the Tiriti scene), and from the centre box of the centre/periphery element above. At the end of the conveyor belt, a square-smiling square-head holds up a rectangle (ie phone) displaying an image of a square-smiling square-head. The text reads “Technological imposition of universal logic and encoded solutions. An arrow labeled “supports” leads from this to the dancing square-heads on the square structure in the left column.
Beneath the conveyor element is a square-head holding a flag with a blue square. Text reads “computing profession” in a square font.
Arrows lead from the two columns to the centre of the lower third of the page. There, a round-frowning round-head holds up a phone displaying a square-smiling square-head. On the left, a speech bubble contains “F**k this bro”. On the right, a speech bubble reads “The apparent lack of values does not mean technology is benign, rather, we have come to presume that efficiency, speed, and productivity are values that match societal aspirations”.
Page 2: Re-tell Indigenous stories as computing stories
The text “Re-tell Indigenous stories as computing stories” is in a large comic font.
The page is divided into the top two-thirds and a lower section. The top section contains an offset central rectangle with a curled corner – meant to represent a page from a comic within this comic (if it’s good enough for Shakespeare…!). It has a large number “1”. Around that central box are some characters, each with speech bubbles and a heading. Snaking around all that is a bolded sentence, starting with a large number “2”.
The number one at the top of the central page has the text “Listen”. The central comic page is divided into four frames. In each frame, characters are in a mini-scene with speech bubbles. The frames are independent.
Top left: A car, front on, shows a round-head teaching a smaller round-head to drive. There is an “L-plate”. The text reads “Most important lesson as a round-head how to behave when the cops pull you over”.
Top right: A round-head. The text reads “Massively underrepresented in every profession, but every positive action is seen as a racist threat”.
Lower left: Four round-head characters representing an intergenerational whanau (family). The text reads “Our mortgage was rejected b’cos the bank doesn’t allow collective ownership”.
Lower right: A round-head is being searched by square-head security. The text reads “My colleagues sail through, but I get searched, every airport”.
Snaking clockwise right around the central element, heading text reads “2. Write a computing person into the story to change the outcome for positive. Do this several times for different actors, different places in the story, and addressing different loci of impact”. A small arrow leads from this to the next set of elements between the snaked words and the central element.
Clockwise are seven sets of figures representing loci of impact, each with a speech bubble and a heading.
12 o’clock: A square-head says “It’s the law”. The heading reads “Structural and systematic”.
1 o’clock: A square-head sitting on the central page says “We’ve always done it this way”. The heading reads “Institutional”.
3 o’clock: A square-head has two speech bubbles. The first says “There’s not a category for that”. The second is “The textbook example is for a Seattle Coffee Shop. Makes sense to follow that…”. The heading reads “Symbolic”.
6 o’clock: (upside down) A square-head hanging off the central page says “Our only concern is for efficiency”. The heading reads “Ideological”.
7 o’clock: (twist your head!). A square-head says “Your sort of people clearly don’t understand”. The heading reads “Interpersonal”.
9 o’clock: A round-head is standing on another round-head’s shoulders. The top round-head is wearing square glasses and says “We just need to fit in”. The heading is “Internalised”.
11 o’clock: A dejected round-head says ”I must be bad”. The heading is “Embodied”.
In the lower third of the page, there is a representation of a green mountain and a river. On the right, a box with spiralled edges reads “Atamai Iahiko”. Text on the left reads “If rivers and mountains are people, what possibilities are opened up for AI by a non-western view of sentience?” and the name “Karaitiana Taiuru”.
Page 3: Productive possibilities of difference.
A blue ribbon enters at the top of the page but twists and refracts into five earthy hues which cascade down the page filling the lower half. The centre of the page contains a large circle, with a series of expanding arrows stemming from the centre. There are two rings of characters (all round-head) in an inner ring and an outer ring, each pair on a radial arrow. Around the circumference of the circle, each arrow points to its label.
The arrow represents a transformation that can be read using the device familiar from the Agile Manifesto. For example: “In order to benefit from productive possibilities of difference we value socioecological regeneration over solely economic justification” (Note it doesn’t explicitly state this on the image). The outer ring represents the goal, and the inner ring is the weaker position.
Clockwise from the top:
Socioecological regeneration. Goal: figures of house, family, wind turbine, tree. Weak: Money.
Transformative system change. Goal: a tiny person with a long lever moving a representation of system (some cogs). Weak: Graph flatlining or decreasing.
Holistic perspectives. Goal: eye looking at the globe. Weak: Eye looking at single point.
Inclusive equity. Goal: Group people are drawn differently (one in a wheelchair). Weak: Small group all the same.
Respectful and collective. Goal: Small groups of people and trees, connected inside an amoeba. Weak: Individuals and a pair with walls between them.
Action-based. Goal: A figure stands atop a small hill, holding a flag. Weak: A figure in a box covers their eyes and ears to hide external forces.
Values-based change. Goal: A smiling figure with a red heart. Weak: A figure is pushing another forward.
Engaging Empowerment. Goal: A group of people, one is holding a spade, another a ladder. Weak: A helicopter dangles a package.
Living positive futures. Goal: Two people, happy. One presents the other with a flower. Weak: A person is overcome with negative feelings.
Humility and desire to learn. Goal: A person looking around, curious. Weak: A book, locked with a chain.
Beneath the circle is a rectangle representing a professional framework of practice. There are ten components, each with a drawn element and a label. The bottom-right corner of the rectangle is extended into a spiral as if the prow of a waka (boat). On that prow stands a character (round-head) waving a flag.
To the left of the framework of practice, the text reads “Capture these positive skills, behaviours, and mindsets to describe a new framework of practice for regenerative, re-indigenised computing”.
Elements of the framework of practice:
System. A person with input and output arrows.
Why. A question mark.
Scope. A person in a box with arrows in and out.
Network. A person with a network of arms.
How. A person lifts the globe with a rope and pulley.
Skills. A larger square containing “Competency” and “Capability” at the top and bottom, and “Transferrable” and “Specific” vertically on the sides. In the middle are a person with a clipboard (a skill – competency) and two people (doing a job in a difficult context – a capability).
Mindset. A cloud/brain.
Quality. A magnifying glass.
Future. A representation of backcasting – a circle with an arrow to a future state, with smaller arrows stepping back.
Underpinning. “Regeneration” is shown by a leaf; “Ethics” by a person with a balance scale, and “Culture” by a heart. All have a small staircase representing a maturity model.
Sources:
- Page 1 takes its argument from Decolonising Computer Science Education – A Global Perspective.
- Page 2 is mostly new, but informed by Jo Boehnert‘s great work, and by discussions with Karaitiana Taiuru.
- Page 3 contains simplified versions of the Transformation Mindset, and our Professional Framework of Practice.