Why HCI Authors Center Queer People Versus Use Them as an Application Area

Investigate why Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) authors choose to center LGBTQ+ people as a research focus versus using LGBTQ+ topics as an application area by studying the systems within which Queer HCI research is produced, including publishing, funding, and review processes.

Background

The paper reviews how LGBTQ+ people are researched and discussed in HCI across CHI, CSCW, DIS, and TOCHI, finding that queer people are often used either as the primary focus or as a case study to serve broader HCI agendas. The authors argue that existing publishing, funding, and reviewing structures may influence these choices.

They explicitly note that current text-based analysis of published work cannot reveal why authors make these choices and call for research into the systems that shape scholarly production in Queer HCI.