Internet and increased datafication, signify a new era for civic society. Social media, fundraising tools, digital petitions, social media analytics, greatly facilitate the ability to activate, organize and raise public opinion. At the same time, the technology entails algorithmic surveillance and risks of being exposed to threats and hatred. For people at risk, undocumented refugees or people with protected identity, the lack of digital infrastructures also means great difficulties. While research points to these opportunities and risks, there is lack of research on how civic society deals with the increased datafication, and what methods, tools, and strategies are used on the field. The purpose of this workshop is therefore to gather researchers who investigate the impact of digitalization on civil society, both for established NGOs and informal activism.

This one-day hybrid workshop builds on previous feminist CSCW workshops to explore feminist theoretical and methodological approaches that have provided us with useful tools to see things differently and make space for change. Since its inception over a decade ago, feminist HCI has progressed from the margins to mainstream HCI, with numerous references in the literature. Feminist HCI has also evolved to incorporate other critical HCI practices such as Queer HCI, participatory design, and speculative design. While feminist approaches have grown in popularity and become mainstream, it is getting more difficult to distinguish the feminist emancipatory core from other attempts of developing and improving society in various ways. In this workshop, we therefore want to revisit our feminist roots, where theory is a liberatory and creative practice, motivated by affect, curiosity, and wonder. From this standpoint, we consider which of our feminist tools can make a significant difference today, in a highly datafied world. The goal of this workshop is to; 1) create an inventory of feminist theories and concepts that have had an impact on our work as designers, educators, researchers, and activists; 2) develop a feminist toolbox for the CSCW community to strengthen our feminist literacy.

In this paper, we explore how activists and human rights defenders deal with datafication. This work demonstrates how data can be a valuable resource in activism and campaign planning. In addition, data and lack of data also complicate daily life for people in vulnerable positions, for example, when contacting government agencies, schools, and medical facilities . Data from four types of human rights activism formed the basis of our analysis. They include volunteers and employees of NGOs dealing with refugee and migrant issues, homelessness, poverty, sexual minorities, and women's shelters. The study was done in Sweden, where the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) laws limit the handling and storage of personal data. The following five major themes emerge from the analysis of data from our interview study: Affording personal integrity, Data poverty, Protective data practices, Drawing attention to data, and Systems and data routines. In addition, this study shows how activists and the organizations that they support are exposed to contradictory aspects of data; on one hand, deliberately exposing data about marginalized/minoritized groups, while on the other, making sure those groups, along with activists themselves, are not exposed. Most important, the data laws and regulations are not adjusted to the needs of the most vulnerable in society, and therefore, actions of civil disobedience are necessary to care for vulnerable populations through data.

This paper examines experiences of mindfulness and meditationapplications for handling stress and emotional strain. We presenta qualitative interview study. The analysis focuses particularly onthe role of persuasive functions in the applications, such as notifications,history tracking, maintaining a daily streak, etc. Theresults suggest that persuasive design patterns can interfere withthe original user needs. While providing some advantages for supportingthe establishment of a meditation habit, persuasive designpatterns also create friction between the application and the users’intentions to reduce stress. We critically examine how persuasivedesign patterns, intended for increasing performance and personalimprovement, may affect the users of meditation apps. Finally, wediscuss how persuasive design patterns in the major meditationapps have been instrumental in recontextualizing meditation froma spiritual practice to a productivity practice.

Sustainable HCI attempts to shift focus beyond humans, to care for both ourselves and our environment. In this paper, we build on this growing interest and contribute with a design ethnography of urban farming. We focus on practices of observing and gathering data about the environment which we frame as ‘noticing’. In our analysis, three approaches to noticing the environment were iden- tified, and design suggestions were developed for each approach: Green Thumbs (control-oriented), Dirty Nails (sensibility-oriented) and BeeNoculars (appreciation-oriented). The design suggestions, presented as posters, focus on ways to improve the alignment of the acquisition and display of data with the identified approaches. We discuss two themes: the noticing and balancing of systemic rela- tions and needs, and sensory-rich experiences of the environment. The paper contributes to a broader discussion in HCI of how tech- nologies could create a different understanding of and relationship to the environment.

More-than-human-centred design is a growing field in HCI (human-computer interaction) that account for non-human actors in design processes (such as animals, plants, and microbes but also autonomous technologies). While the rationale for more-than-human-centred design is clear, there is a lack of design methods grounded in this thinking. We articulate the idea of noticing as a method for approaching design spaces as systems of mutual interdependence between organisms. The findings are based on a longitudinal ethnographic study of urban farming—including the study of urban farmers’ practices and use of technologies with a focus on the interplay between humans and non-humans, such as plants and microbes. We articulate noticing as a phenomenon and show examples of urban farmers’ practices of noticing. We discuss principles for designing with the interdependencies of several organisms based on what is noticed in a setting. We argue that the way we have separated ideas about the environment and human experience is a part of the sustainability problem—and suggest noticing as an approach that instead combines positive human experiences and the needs of the environment.

In urban farming communities, enthusiasts adopt urban land and cooperatively develop the space with organic cultivations. This kind of gardening is guided by several ideals, which are part of the farmers’ motivation. However, gardening alone cannot meet the requirements for establishing a community in the city environment. The activities and ideals of the urban farms need to be negotiated and articulated to various stakeholders, including local establishments, other citizens, and city governments. Based on a three-year field study of urban community farms in three countries, we describe how the negotiation and articulation of the organizational, material, and ideological boundaries unfolded both internally and externally in these communities. We provide concrete empirical examples of how such communities develop, what their challenges are, and how they can be supported by technology. We use the lens of civic engagement as a point of departure to situate urban farming and community technologies as a phenomenon. The main contributions of this paper are accounts of the kind of articulation work that volunteer-based civic engagement communities face and design qualities related to this boundary articulation.

One way of using public green spaces is to allow cultivation by citizens. Community gardening has proven to have many social benefits and can undoubtedly contribute to a sustainable society in a variety of ways. Yet while being clearly attractive for both citizens and officials, it does not always flourish in practice. In this study we draw on interviews with park engineers working in the city of Stockholm to analyze why community gardening is not more prevalent, despite the clearly existing political and popular will to promote it. The study shows that there are significant differences between Stockholm City's district administrations. Through applying implementation theory, we show that relatively small variations in local resources, expertise, and interests fundamentally shape the outcome of community gardening initiatives. It is also shown that unclear guidelines and a lack of horizontal and vertical communication constitute institutional barriers to the implementation, development, and resilience of community gardening in the districts of Stockholm. © 2020 Masaryk University.

Research on environmental sustainability in HCI is investigating the opportunities and hindrances technologies pose on living sustainably, beyond direct material impact of production, use and disposal. With this background, we focus on the smartphone camera as a tool that allows users to quickly and relatively effortlessly depict, save, share, access, augment or amplify information about the environment. Based on two years of participant observation studies, we present examples of how urban farmers use the smartphone camera as a tool in their practice. We discuss how the smartphone camera mediates human experiences of the environment and how certain uses of the camera may contribute to environmental sustainability. We highlight how the smartphone camera used as a tool in gardening was experienced to support (a) feelings of closeness or bonds towards the local environment and (b) the creation and sharing of knowledge.