Critical Practice through complex engagement in Ubicomp
I read exactly the same chapter by Agre in one of my first classes in Irvine. Going back to my notes on the article from this first read, it is interesting to see how what one takes away from a read changes over time and with increased immersion in one’s own field. And it only occurred to me now, that re-reading material does not only change individual perception of the material due to current educational/cultural/social/physical… position, but that it changes the material itself. Reading Agre now, almost felt like reading a call for alternative practices in my own field. The voice in the text got substituted by an imagined figure that speaks to me, the reader, and my current understanding of how to read my own field and its practices. Thus, when Agre calls for a critical practice through complex engagement, I not only read it as an immersion in a field to be able to understand its flaws that are to be depicted by words and practice, but as understanding one’s own role as practiced reflection and defamiliarization. The goal of critical practice, Agre argues, is not a clean break, but complex engagement and I think I read elsewhere that reflection upon the practice is then considered practice itself. What Agre told me this time, however, is not only a story about a practitioner of critical practice in a particular field, but that any such practitioner should reflect also on one’s own current critique in an engaged manner. Reflection upon practice, methods and critique, however, might not be enough as Haraway suggests when she motivates for diffraction and a new understanding of the modest witness. How can we practice complex engagement in a reflective and diffractive way in our field? Has ubicomp offered critical practices compared to other established fields in and around informatics? What could complex engagement mean for us – the ones who are in a learning process?