The Politics of Titling: The Representation of Countries in CHI Papers

For decades, HCI scholars have studied technological systems and their relationship to particular contexts and user groups. Increasingly, this scholarship is dependent not only on localized contexts, but also the relationship of local contexts to the global stage, drawing on approaches such as ICT4D and cross-cultural design. In this paper, we examine authors' descriptions of study contexts, particularly country information, in paper titles and texts in the CHI Proceedings from 2013 to 2017. We found strikingly different patterns of titling between studies of Western and non-Western countries, including whether and how country names are mentioned in titles, and the precision when describing study contexts. Drawing on critical theories, we analyze how the politics of titling at CHI functions to build categories of "normal" and "exotic." We explicate the problems that the current ways of representation bring to knowledge production at CHI, and necessary paths to move forward.