Interactive Tabletops Aren’t Going to Situate Themselves

Abstract

Research situated in non-Western contexts continues to be exceptionalized and marginalized in Computing venues. We describe how this exceptionalization is caused by the creation of centers and peripheries of discourse through mechanisms of presentation of group identity. Power difference between the center and periphery result in additional labor of self-location performed by the periphery in order to be understood by researchers situated in Western contexts. We argue how increasing self-location in research on nonperipheral populations is a way to address this marginalization and improve the quality of such research.