Kapwa as a Speculative Lens for Interrogating Sociotechnical Systems and Tech

• In Event: Pakikipag-Kapwa: Filipino Indigenous Ways of Knowing for Decolonial Studies in Filipino-American Educational Research

Abstract

Objectives. This presentation aims to create speculative discourse on what the Filipino concept of Kapwa means within the space of computing (e.g., system designs, AI, data, and other sub-disciplines) and how it could potentially shape how we think about the design of sociotechnical systems; the relationships across computing, technology, and the broader public; and how it can transform our thinking of the decolonization of computing.

Perspectives. The concept of Kapwa as the “shared self” (Reyes, 2015) has not been explicitly explored in computing. When examining the colonial drivers that shape computing, scholars consider tech as sociotechnical systems bound and shaped by the histories, norms, desires, and biases of its designers and the communities they operate in (Das, 2023; Jayathirtha & Castro, 2023; Benjamin, 2019). The term Ubuntu (“humanity to others”) has been used to think about the values that drive tech innovation (Gwagwa et al., 2022)—in fact, it is the name of a popular open-source operating system, with the mission to “deliver the world's free software, freely, to everybody on the same terms” (Ubuntu, n.d.). I push on these sociotechnical lenses with Kapwa as a new lens for (1) focusing on the shared humanity that connects across tech and communities and (2) surfacing the colonial logics that disrupt these connections through tech design.

Methods. I engaged Filipino/Filipino-American (FilAm) youth in the creation of interactive creative computing projects that encapsulate and connect identity, community, and personal stories. Youth participants engaged in pakikipagkwentuhan (kwento, relational and communal storytelling) to surface cultural, familial, and communal stories and identities and used physical computing sensors and electronics alongside artistic materials to speculate on how technology shapes their histories, stories, and experiences and brings them to life.

Data sources. The FilAm youths’ interactive computing projects serve as physicalized kwentos (stories). I personally engaged in pakikipagkwentuhan with the youth to ground conversations in our shared identities—then triangulated our shared stories with their projects to identify how kapwa is embodied in tech and the role of kwento in surfacing colonial histories in tech.

Results. The youths’ projects provided a way to externalize stories into physical forms that they can share with their communities (their kapwa), who can interact with the projects in turn as a form of mutual story-sharing (pakikipagkwentuhan). The conversations also surfaced the hidden ways that dominant narratives shape how we interact with tech (e.g., selecting cultural markers within systems) and how that shapes future tech designs and data (e.g., what cultural marker data is provided to AI).

Scholarly significance. The work has implications for how we think about the hidden logics and narratives that shape computing systems and how we can educate future designers of these systems. More specifically, kapwa provides a new lens for deconstructing the “settler-colonial gaze” (Paris, 2019) that drives modern system designs while exploring how the shared self can counter dominant narratives to sustain cultures, identities, futures, and peoples in computing.

Author

• Francisco Castro, New York University