10749039.2017.1293690
7. Thomas, V., Remy, C., and Bates, O.
The limits of HCD: Reimagining the
anthropocentricity of ISO 9241-210.
Proc. of the 2017 Workshop on Computing
Within Limits, 85–92; https://doi.
org/10.1145/3080556.3080561
8. Thomas, V., Remy, C., Hazas, M., and
Bates, O. HCI and environmental public
policy: Opportunities for engagement.
Proc. of the 2017 CHI Conference
on Human Factors in Computing
Systems, 6986–6992; https://doi.
org/10.1145/3025453.3025579
Juliet Norton is an informatics Ph.D.
candidate at UC Irvine. She researches grassroots
agroecology and information technology.
→
jnnorton@uci.edu
Ankita Raturi recently completed her
Ph.D. in software engineering at UC Irvine on
modeling sustainable agriculture.
→
araturi@uci.edu
Bonnie Nardi is a professor at UC Irvine.
Her latest book is Heteromation and Other
Stories of Computing and Capitalism.
→
nardi@uci.edu
Sebastian Prost is a doctoral trainee
at Open Lab, Newcastle University, U.K.,
researching digital technologies for
sustainable food systems.
→
s.prost2@ncl.ac.uk
Samantha McDonald is a Ph.D. student at
UC Irvine studying information technology,
sustainability, and political communication.
→
smcdona2@uci.edu
Daniel Pargman is an associate professor
in the Department of Media Technology and
Interaction Design (MID) at K TH Royal Institute
of Technology, Sweden.
→
pargman@kth.se
Oliver Bates researches infrastructure
and practice redesign to mitigate growing
environmental impacts at Lancaster University.
→
o.bates@lancaster.ac.uk
Maria Normark is an associate professor
in media technology at Södertörn University,
Sweden. She researches societal values and
gender issues related to interaction design.
→
maria.normark@sh.se
Bill Tomlinson is a professor at UC Irvine
studying sustainability and information
technology.
→
wmt@uci.edu
Nico Herbig researches cognition-aware
UIs as a Ph.D. candidate at the German
Research Center for Artificial Intelligence,
Saarland Informatics Campus.
→
nico.herbig@dfki.de
Lynn Dombrowski is an assistant
professor in human-computer interaction
at Indiana University – Purdue University –
Indianapolis (IUPUI).
→
lsdombro@iupui.edu
food trends indicate there is consumer
interest in local food production
and in small-scale farming, which is
interpreted as a sign of quality. In the
wake of this interest, people in urban
areas are rediscovering practices of
growing food and producing vegetables
and fruits. This renewed interest can
help people connect to what they eat
and understand the kinds of resources
and complex processes that are required
to put food on the table.
Constraints. Understanding the
legal, regulatory, and social constraints
we must work within is imperative.
Many practices in the food system are
enforced by policy and social norms. We
can discover how to design sustainable
food systems within political and social
constraints. We have to be mindful
that those constraints may, perhaps
unintentionally, influence our designs
toward more unsustainable practices.
Also, this means that we cannot design
something that moves toward an ideal
sustainable food system but is not
legally or socially supported without
facing significant pushback. We should
also recognize that the makeup of local
political and social systems will yield
additional and often unique constraints
for sustainable food systems.
CONCLUSION
As HCI researchers, we can begin
to engage with issues in food +
sustainability by exploring food systems
on land and at sea, across cultures
and generations, that present us with
challenges that need to be addressed at
global and multi-generational scales. To
achieve this agenda, we must include
the views and voices of diverse global
populations to aid in the development
of a representative knowledge base
of challenges and solutions in the
food systems at different scales and
in different geographies. The impact
of catastrophic events (e.g., scarcity,
climate, disease) on food systems and
responses in other parts of the world
(e.g., problems with crop yield and
supply chain, poverty and famine)
has largely been invisible to food
systems in parts of North America and
Europe. These challenges and events
provide the backdrop for considering
future scenarios for sustainable
food systems supported by digital
technology, including uncertain and
unpredictable climates, untrustworthy
business models and supply chains, and
challenges around increasing poverty
and social injustice. By mapping these
challenges and events to the roles of
digital technology, we will be able to
make a start on HCI’s journey into the
design and development of sustainable
food systems across populations, lands,
oceans, and generations.
This article is our first step toward
developing a new food + sustainability
research agenda in HCI. We call on
the community to take on the themes
of sustainable food that challenge the
paradigms and norms of technology.
We must continue to challenge poverty
and enable food sovereignty globally,
push for new policies, and work on
understanding and reconfiguring the
trust and power in the relationships in
the food system. Designing a sustainable
food system is no simple feat. It is an
ever-changing challenge that spans
human and physical geographies, and
surpasses a single lifespan. Our current
understanding in HCI, then, must grow
and continuously evolve.
Endnotes
1. Raturi, A., Norton, J., Tomlinson,
B., Blevis, E., and Dombrowski, L.
Designing sustainable food systems.
Proc. of the 2016 CHI Conference Extended
Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing
Systems. 2017, 609–616; https://doi.
org/10.1145/3027063.3027075
2. Nesheim, M.C., Oria, M., and Yih, P. T.,
eds. A Frame work for Assessing Effects of the
Food System. National Academies Press,
Washington, D.C., 2015; http://www.nap.
edu/catalog/18846
3. Raturi, A., Norton, J., Tomlinson, B.,
Blevis, E., and Dombrowski, L. Designing
Sustainable Food Systems. 2017; http://
www.foodchi.org
4. Blevis, E. and Coleman Morse, S. Food, dude.
Interactions 16, 2 (2009), 58–62; https://
doi.org/10.1145/1487632.1487646
5. Leshed, G., Håkansson, M., and Kaye, J.J.
“Our life is the farm and farming is
our life”: Home-work coordination
in organic farm families. Proc. of the
17th ACM Conference on Computer
Supported Cooperative Work & Social
Computing. 2014, 487–498; https://doi.
org/10.1145/2531602.2531708
6. McCune, N., Rosset, P.M., Cruz Salazar,
T., Morales, H., and Saldívar Moreno,
A. The long road: Rural youth, farming
and agroecological formación in Central
America. Mind, Culture, and Activity 24, 3
(2017), 183–198; https://doi.org/10.1080/
DOI: 10.1145/3137095 COP YRIGHT HELD BY AUTHORS. PUBLICATION RIGHTS LICENSED TO ACM. $15.00