[SIGCIS-Members] Is Unix racist?

[Joris van Zundert]

Dear list members,

There were one or two comments over at the Humanist list (
http://dhhumanist.org/) on this thread here. I commented over there that it
was not the first time I had witnessed pretty aggressive knee-jerk
reactions specifically on McPherson's piece in a specifically
tech/engineering context. And I hinted at the possibility that such
reactions might be the result of a relative poorly developed
self-reflexivity in the IT-domain with regard to some still strongly held
norms and believes, e.g. the neutrality of code and engineering.

As a result I was pointed to an article by Fiona Barnett: Barnett, Fiona
M., 2014. "The Brave Side of DH". *Differences: A Journal of Feminist
Cultural Studies*, 25(1). doi 10.1215/10407391-2420003.

Quite justified, in view of my own experiences in any case, she delves into
very similar knee jerk reactions within the field of digital humanities
itself. I report that here as it may offer an interesting follow up read to
McPherson's article.

Two more cents I guess… Similar to Matthew Kirschenbaum I think that
McPherson and Barnett simply point out that existing social structures
converge to determine what will be recognized as belonging to or
contributing to their (sub)cultures. Such social constructs influence
technological development, the formation of professional fields, and
communities of practice. This in turn then begs the question if and how
strong the developed technology re-inscribes these social structures into
society. To make it very simple: if you design a visual only interface you
are re-enforcing the disabilities of the blind.

McPherson I think mostly pleas for investigating how such constructs work
by exemplifying one way of trying to attack and deconstruct them.
Discarding such attempts at investigating socio-technological interaction,
even if they maybe are still methodologically somewhat underdeveloped,
strikes me as being dangerously careless about the impact of technology.

Kind regards
--Joris

PS Barnett's article is behind a paywall, but #icanhazpdf worked wonders,
and so does email obviously.


On Wed, Aug 19, 2015 at 10:42 PM Sharon Traweek <traweek at history.ucla.edu>
wrote:

> Hi
> Thanks to everyone for the fascinating discussion!
>
> re BASIC, UNIX, bugs becoming features, modularities, abstraction levels,
> algorithms, ontologies, taxonomies, et al ...
> I am seeking more references to specific cases about how those in marginal
> positions [rank, job classification, domain, age, class, sexuality,
> ethnicity, 'race,' gender, disability, nationality] might have been engaged
> in significant innovations, perhaps as yet unacknowledged/unreported with
> respect to computing work? That is, has the experience of being 'in the
> margins' enabled some people to see, if not outside the box, at least most
> of the box from their distinctive position at the edge?
> Cheers,
> Sharon
> Sharon Traweek, UCLA
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