Praxis for Otherwise Worlds: Expanding Emancipatory HCI through Black Studies

This paper positions Black Studies as a foundational analytic for Emancipatory HCI, showing how Afropessimism and Afrofuturism together model a praxis for designing otherwise worlds. Afropessimism offers a diagnostic lens for understanding how anti-Blackness structures the epistemic, institutional, and sociotechnical foundations of HCI, while Afrofuturism highlights the fugitive, kin-making, and improvisational practices through which people craft openings within those systems. Through three case studies, we examine how Black communities engage, appropriate, and transform sociotechnical systems in everyday life. These examples illuminate practices of accountability, attunement, and collective sensemaking that unsettle dominant design assumptions. We draw out design takeaways that challenge HCI’s inherited paradigms and demonstrate why Black Studies is indispensable for those seeking to expand and deepen Emancipatory HCI.