Being in the Hybrid World: A Feminist Phenomenological Perspective on Participatory, Embodied Sensemaking

We make sense of the world by interacting with it. Therefore, the things we design to interact with, are tools we use to make sense of the world. However, not every tool is created equal, and not every tool can be used by everybody. The aim of this dissertation is to investigate
how people — with diverse bodies, backgrounds, experiences, abilities, emotions, and opportunities — make sense of their environment, objects in it, and each other, when the world we live in becomes increasingly hybrid.
Through the design and analysis of two hybrid systems, I have explored the characteristics of design for participatory, embodied sensemaking, and offer complimentary characteristics for the design of hybrid tools, artefacts, and systems to support the generation of shared
understanding between people. Furthermore, I have considered these characteristics, and the design for participatory, embodied sensemaking, from a feminist phenomenological perspective, to address the unquestioned norm of the ‘universal’ body that has crept into the
research field of tangible and embodied interaction. I also consider what designing for embodied being-in-the-world means in a hybrid world, and how we can design artefacts and systems that are truly participatory, and invite embodied experiences from diverse bodies
with intersecting identities.
This dissertation therefore contributes to the application area of tangible and embodied interaction design, and the discourse on feminist human-computer interaction. Furthermore, it advances the theoretical underpinnings of embodied interaction research by addressing
phenomenology from a critical, feminist perspective.