Redlining Maps and Terrains of Sustainability: Interdisciplinary Mapping of Racialized Redlining to Present-Day Sustainability Agendas in HCI

Title of the Paper

Redlining Maps and Terrains of Sustainability: Interdisciplinary Mapping of Racialized Redlining to Present-Day Sustainability Agendas in HCI

Bibliographic Information

• Subject Areas: Sustainability Studies, Systemic Discrimination (Redlining), and Human-Computer Interaction (HCI)
• Keywords: Sustainable HCI, Redlining, Sustainability, Ecological Posthumanism, Socioeconomic Sustainability

Research Background and Problem

• Research Background: The paper explores the relationship between two phenomena: the racially discriminatory U.S. government housing loan qualification and mapping practice of the 1930s (redlining) and contemporary sustainability issues. The long-term impacts of redlining on African American communities include exposure to environmental hazards and difficulties in intergenerational wealth accumulation, problems that persist to this day.
• Core Problem: How historical redlining policies relate to the "dyadic dialogue method" in HCI research and sustainability agendas. The authors also question how the ecological posthumanism perspective in SHCI (which views humans as part of an ecosystem) adequately addresses social issues among humans, such as racial segregation.
• Significance of the Research: Understanding how interdisciplinary approaches can dissect the impacts of historical discriminatory data practices (i.e., redlining) provides new perspectives on race, socioeconomic, and environmental sustainability studies.
• Motivation and Related Work: The research draws on critical race theory, ecological posthumanism, and regional economics, attempting to break the limitations of sustainability being considered solely from environmental or technological dimensions.

Solution

• Research Methodology: The paper employs an interdisciplinary mapping approach, overlaying historical redlining maps with contemporary sustainability issue data (e.g., food insecurity, air pollution) to explore the connections between history and the present.
• Key Innovations:
  1. Transforming "mapping" into a tool for interdisciplinary dialogue, combined with SHCI's ecological posthumanism framework to analyze data;
  2. Challenging and expanding the concept of ecological posthumanism by incorporating issues of race and social justice.
• Implementation Steps:
  1. Creating multi-layered historical and contemporary maps using various techniques (e.g., R statistical analysis and manual digital design) to analyze geographic changes in redlined areas;
  2. Integrating economic perspectives (e.g., social welfare data) with ecological arguments to explore socioeconomic and environmental sustainability;
  3. Using collaboration and the dyadic dialogue method to reveal multi-perspective meanings of sustainability and conduct cross-validation.

Research Outcomes

• Specific Findings:
  1. Proposed a method for deepening interdisciplinary dialogue through mapping;
  2. Identified inconsistencies in the pace of various sustainability agendas (e.g., the relationship between socioeconomic sustainability and environmental condition changes);
  3. Highlighted the complex evolution of long-term social issues (e.g., food insecurity) while observing relatively stable correlations between certain ecological issues (e.g., pollution and soil quality in redlined areas).
• Advantages: By employing layering and keyword analysis, the study enhanced spatial and temporal understanding of the long-term impacts of redlining policies. It also infused socioeconomic agendas into ecological posthumanism research, presenting a more comprehensive sustainability research model.
• Experimental or Evaluation Results:
  • Found that the relationship between food insecurity and redlining is not linear, requiring longer-term data tracking;
  • Observed clearer relationships between environmental pollution and certain historical geographic features (e.g., lead contamination along industrial zones).
• Limitations and Future Directions:
  1. Analytical limitations due to the time span of the data: a lack of intermediate data during the redlining policy period to bridge temporal gaps;
  2. The complex dynamics of socioeconomic mobility and racial stratification require higher-level longitudinal data studies;
  3. Future directions include more closely linking historical data practices with current data systems (e.g., artificial intelligence) to predict potential long-term socio-environmental impacts.