HCI Research on Agriculture: Competing Sociotechnical Imaginaries, Definitions, and Opportunities

Document Title

HCI Research on Agriculture: Competing Sociotechnical Imaginaries, Definitions, and Opportunities

Document Information

• Subject Area: Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), Agricultural Technology, Sociotechnical Imaginaries
• Keywords: Digital Agriculture, Sustainability, Climate Change, Sociotechnical Imaginaries, ICT4D, Urban Agriculture, Literature Review, Agricultural Issues, Global North-South

Research Background and Issues

• Identified Problems or Challenges:

  • Agriculture, as a critical foundation for global food security, urgently requires innovation amidst climate change and other pressures.
  • Current agricultural research operates within two competing frameworks: traditional agriculture (focused on profit and efficiency) and alternative agriculture (centered on sustainability and community leadership).
  • Many HCI studies on agriculture predominantly focus on Global North contexts, neglecting the needs and limitations of the Global South, particularly smallholder farmers.
  • The binary perspective of traditional versus alternative agriculture may constrain the potential for agricultural innovation.

• Significance of the Issues:

  • Approximately two-thirds of the rural population in the Global South rely on subsistence farming for their livelihoods, making it crucial to address their needs to achieve sustainable and equitable food systems.
  • HCI, as a core field for technology design and application, should play an active role in promoting ecological, economic, and social balance.

• Research Motivation and Related Work:

  • This paper aims to systematically evaluate HCI research related to agriculture through a literature review, exploring the tensions within sociotechnical imaginaries and proposing new perspectives beyond the binary framework of traditional and alternative agriculture.
  • The sociotechnical imaginaries theoretical framework is introduced to analyze how technology design reflects social, political, and economic values.

Proposed Solutions

• Method or Solution Proposed:

  • The authors classify and analyze agriculture-related papers in the ACM library using the sociotechnical imaginaries framework and Beus and Dunlap's binary framework for agricultural practices.
  • Jasanoff and Kim's sociotechnical imaginaries framework is employed to organize the literature, focusing on differences, temporal changes, spatial distribution, and the relationship between individual and collective identities.

• Innovations:

  • Development of a systematic literature evaluation tool to classify and analyze the directions, goals, and outcomes of agriculture-related research.
  • Proposal of a more inclusive perspective beyond the traditional and alternative frameworks to study how HCI can drive agricultural technology development.
  • Emphasis on the importance of environmental justice and social inclusion in HCI research on agriculture.

• Implementation Steps and Key Techniques:

  • Two-stage literature analysis: first, articles are classified based on 15 factors; second, articles are coded according to Beus and Dunlap's six binary elements.
  • Results are refined through detailed reading and coding discussions, exploring the extent to which the literature addresses the needs and biases of agriculture in the Global North and South.

Research Outcomes

• Specific Findings:

  • Among the 107 articles analyzed, most focus on subsistence farms, commercial farms, small-scale organic farms, and urban agriculture.
  • Subsistence farms in the Global South account for a significant proportion, but their needs and challenges are insufficiently addressed within the traditional and alternative agriculture binary framework.
  • HCI research generally supports alternative agriculture, though some studies focus on commercially driven traditional agriculture.
  • The geographic location of studies is closely tied to agricultural site types, technological outcomes, and social factors.

• Comparison with Existing Solutions and Advantages:

  • Unlike traditional studies, this paper systematically examines how sociotechnical imaginaries in agriculture-related HCI research adapt to the contexts of the Global North and South.
  • Recommendations are made to enrich and supplement the alternative agriculture framework, making it more inclusive, particularly for rural subsistence farmers.

• Experimental or Evaluation Results:

  • Analysis reveals significant differences in agricultural scenarios and technology design goals between regions such as the Global North and South.
  • The paradigms of alternative and traditional agriculture in HCI research are found to be oppositional but fail to fully encompass the diversity of global agricultural practices.

• Limitations and Future Directions:

  • Current HCI research on agriculture overly focuses on small-scale farms and the Global North, neglecting the complex economic, social, and ecological realities of subsistence farming.
  • The authors call for future research to move beyond the binary framework of traditional and alternative agriculture, adopting broader perspectives such as environmental justice and social inclusion.

Recommended Directions

• Expand research frameworks to address the needs of subsistence agriculture in diverse development contexts.
• Redefine agricultural outcomes in HCI, emphasizing diversified technological applications and non-technological support.
• Increase attention to the roles of commercial farms and farmworkers to comprehensively assess the social impacts of agricultural technologies.
• Apply principles of environmental justice to examine socio-economic and ecological relationships in global agricultural scenarios.