UW SIGCHI: Illegitimate Civic Participation, Mariam Asad
Channel: UW SIGCHI
Date: 2015-04-01

In this talk, Mariam discusses her work in examining the way Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) support forms of community activism that operate outside formal political and institutional channels. By working with activists concerned with issues of housing justice, she has been able gain insight into the way ICTs play a role in complementing forms of civic engagement that challenges, rather than works with, institutional authority. She argues that ICTs are instrumental in supporting and shaping three alternate information practices—situating, codification, and scaffolding—that each serve the goals of direct democratic engagement. She also shows how local activist communities engage in these three practices through their varied use of ICTs, including the ways they provide mechanisms for informal but politically significant—and legitimate—civic engagement.