Distinguished scholar talk: Hope in the Unmaking: Insights from the Kalahari about the temporalities of prediction – Nic Bidwell

Nic (Nicola J) Bidwell*

Bookings essential: Eventbrite link

In this talk, I introduce new insights that emerge in collaborating with Ju|’hoansi people in the Nyae Nyae conservancy in North-East Namibia. I reflect on people’s practices of making and unmaking in relation to a low-cost system comprising solar-charging and communal phones, which we made together and installed in 40 villages in 2019. I connect my reflections on making and unmaking with ongoing analyses in a parallel project that explores how Ju|’hoansi knowledge practices can drive the creation and use of AI tools. Our conversations, observations, games and stories, since 2020, situated discussions of probability in everyday reasoning about social, ecological, and other phenomena. They drew our attention to how we inhabit and embody time in lived experience and imagination and to relations between hope, probability and risk. Thus, my talk considers how temporal phenomena are integrated in making and unmaking and how the temporal sensitivities of Indigenous groups may help in designing to better support the knowledges that can sustain our worlds.

* With research and reflection from: Charlie Nqeisji, Leon Tsamkxao, |Kun Kunta, Martin Ujakpa, Helen Arnold, Alan Blackwell and Candi Miller

Selected related work

Bidwell, N.J., Arnold, H., Blackwell, A., Nqeisji,C., Kunta, |K., Ujakpa, M. (2022) AI Design and     . Everyday Logics in the Kalahari. In: The RoutledgeCompanion to MediaAnthropology. (Ed) E. Costa, P. Lange, N. Haynes, J. Sinanan.

Bidwell, N.J. (2022) Meshworking Temporalities in Technologies that Sustain. In: Future- proofing: Making Practice-based IT Design Sustainable. (Ed) C. Simone, I. Wagner, C. Müller, A. Weibert, V. Wulf. Oxford University Press

Tsamkxao, L. & Bidwell N.J., (November 2021) The Ju/hoansi people’s digital network talking around Elephant. Online Talk: https://videos.apc.org/u/apc/m/talking-around-elephants-sb/

Bidwell, N.J. (May 2021) Translating time How Exploring Predictive Logics in the Kalahari Reminded us of some Temporal Illusions in AI . Online Talk: https://vimeo.com/556290698

Bidwell, N.J., Elsden, C., Trotter, L., Shaw, P., Harding, M., Davies, N, Speed, C. (2021) A Right Time to Give: Beyond Saving Time in Automated Conditional Donations. Proc. CHI ’21. ACM

Bidwell, N.J., Siya, M., Marsden, G., Tucker, WD., Tshemese, M., Gaven, N., Ntlangano, S., Eglinton, K. Robinson, S. (2014) Walking and the Social Life of Solar Charging in Rural Africa. Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction (TOCHI), 20(4) 1-33

Bidwell, N.J., Reitmaier, T., Rey-Moreno, C., Roro, Z., Siya, M, Dlutu-Siya, B. (2013) Timely Relations in Rural Africa. In: Proc. 12th International Conference on Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries. (IFIP: WG 9.4: 92 -106.

Bidwell, N.J., Standley, P., George, T., Steffensen, V. (2008) The Landscape’s Apprentice: Lessons for Design from Grounding Documentary. Proc. DIS08. ACM. 88–98.

Nic (Nicola J) Bidwell Bio: Nic Bidwell has researched at the intersection of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and social informatics with a focus on the Global Souths for 20 years. This encompasses working with First Nations people in far north Australia, Namiba and Mexico and rural inhabitants of South Africa, Mozambique, Kenya, Ireland, Uganda, Indonesia, Argentina and India. She initiated the first panel on Indigenous Led Digital Enterprise at OZchi’08 and co-founded the African HCI Conference (AfriCHI) in 2016. Her ethnographically informed design work with rural collaborators set the stage for South Africa’s first community owned ISP and her analyses of relations between spectrum regulation and community networks (CNs) and community radio have informed policy debate. Nic is Chair of SIGCHI’s Sustainability Committee, Digital Ethics Lead at Melbourne University, University Fellow at Charles Darwin University and an Adjunct Professor at International University of Management in Namibia, where she maintains her rural home.

Agenda:

New insights emerging from collaborating with Ju|’hoansi people in the Nyae Nyae conservancy in North-East Namibia.

Biography

Nic Bidwell has researched at the intersection of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and social informatics with a focus on the Global Souths for 20 years. This encompasses working with First Nations people in far north Australia, Namiba and Mexico and rural inhabitants of South Africa, Mozambique, Kenya, Ireland, Uganda, Indonesia, Argentina and India. She initiated the first panel on Indigenous Led Digital Enterprise at OZchi’08 and co-founded the African HCI Conference (AfriCHI) in 2016. Her ethnographically informed design work with rural collaborators set the stage for South Africa’s first community owned ISP and her analyses of relations between spectrum regulation and community networks (CNs) and community radio have informed policy debate. Nic is Chair of SIGCHI’s Sustainability Committee, Digital Ethics Lead at Melbourne University, University Fellow at Charles Darwin University, and an Adjunct Professor at International University of Management in Namibia, where she maintains her rural home.

Bookings essential: Eventbrite link

Details:

Location: QUT Kelvin Grove Campus149 Victoria Park Road, Z4-The Hut, Level 1, Kelvin Grove, QLD, 4059 [link to map]
Start Date: 16/06/2023 [add to calendar]
Start Time: 2:00pm
End Date: 16/06/2023
End Time: 4:00pm
RSVP By: Thursday 15th of June 2023
Cost: Nil
Organiser: QUT Design Lab
Enquiries: QUT Design Lab: designlab@qut.edu.au
Register:

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