Toward Improved Ethnography for Transnational HCI

Through a feminist critique of the ethnography method and the use of reflective HCI and global ethnography methodology, in this paper I will provide a discussion of methodological challenges for transnational design research using ethnographic methods. This discourse is meant to explore potential adjustments to HCI’s common use of ethnographic methods; specific attention is given to transnational HCI user research. This paper will show, through the discussion of feminist standpoint theory, critical reflection, and a global ethnography framework (that of Gille and Ó Riain), that there is room for improvement in HCI's appropriation of ethnographic methods and that the problem space of transnational HCI would benefit from an ethnographic practice with specifically tailored frameworks and epistemological positions. Author