Incommensurable Writings - Examining the Status of Gender Difference Within HCI Coding Practices

Gender relations are reproduced both within HCI development processes as well as within contexts of use. Hence, theorising the subject of gender becomes part of the responsibility of HCI as a form of practice. The fledgling subfield of feminist HCI has created an epistemological basis for thinking through these challenges. The current text seeks to relate to these contributions by analysing practices of coding as they pertain to HCI. We argue that coding is of yet undertheorised regarding the subject of gender relations. By drawing on the semiotic theories of Michael Mateas and combining them with Donna Haraway’s reading of material-semiotic actors, the text aims to provide new impulses for a theorisation of the practice of code-writing as a (potentially gendered) writing practice. It thus aims at increasing the translatability of HCI theory into gender-aware communities of knowledge production.