Login (DCU Staff Only)
Login (DCU Staff Only)

DORAS | DCU Research Repository

Explore open access research and scholarly works from DCU

Advanced Search

Responsible Design Through Care: A Relational Framework for Gendered Harm

Forattini, Fernando orcid logoORCID: 0000-0002-8431-8555 (2026) Responsible Design Through Care: A Relational Framework for Gendered Harm. In: CHI '26 Sociotechnical Imaginaries for Responsible Design Workshop, 15/04/2026, Barcelona.

Abstract
Abstract: Gender-based harm online is often addressed through individualised safety tools, content moderation mechanisms, or compliance-driven governance, with responsibility framed through abstract ethical principles and narrow performance metrics. This position statement argues that such approaches insufficiently account for the institutional relationships, dependency conditions, and accountability gaps through which harm is produced, normalised, and left unresolved. Building on an integrated body of work that includes several peer-reviewed articles and editorials, this paper draws on a structured review of 308 technology design studies (2010–2023) showing the dominance of utilitarian, deontological, and virtue-ethical framings, alongside focus group research with 110 marginalised women in Brazil navigating high-stakes digital services under conditions of institutional mistrust, harm and power asymmetry. Together, these studies motivate care ethics as a foundational design and governance orientation for developing sociotechnical imaginaries of responsibility. For the workshop, this position statement contributes a conceptually grounded and empirically informed account of why prevailing “responsible design” ethics in HCI and IS often fail women in practice, and what a care-ethical alternative makes possible. It offers: (1) a systematic critique of dominant ethical framings that disembed design from social and institutional structures; (2) a relational, care-ethical framework with implications for trust, empowerment, and engagement; (3) an empirically grounded care chain model linking design to organisational response; and (4) actionable pathways and prompts to support collective reflection on responsible, gender-aware sociotechnical design.
Metadata
Item Type:Conference or Workshop Item (Paper)
Event Type:Workshop
Refereed:Yes
Subjects:Business > Business ethics
Computer Science > Information technology
DCU Faculties and Centres:DCU Faculties and Schools > DCU Business School
Published in: Proceedings of CHI '26 Sociotechnical Imaginaries for Responsible Design Workshop. .
Official URL:https://ou-cpwo.github.io/chi-sird-2026/assets/doc...
Funders:Lero - Research Ireland, European Union
ID Code:32522
Deposited On:27 Apr 2026 13:38 by Fernando Forattini . Last Modified 27 Apr 2026 13:38
Documents

Full text available as:

[thumbnail of CHI-SIRD-06.pdf]
Preview
PDF - Requires a PDF viewer such as GSview, Xpdf or Adobe Acrobat Reader
Creative Commons: Attribution 4.0
67kB
Downloads

Downloads

Downloads per month over past year

Archive Staff Only: edit this record