Caste and Technology: Interpretations and Explorations in CSCW and beyond

Collectively building a "many"festo to explore the relationship between caste and technology, by bringing together scholars, activists, allies, and practitioners across diverse intellectual traditions with an interest in understanding how situated and lived realities of caste shapes mundane technological artifacts, design, policy, and theory/conceptual frameworks. In this workshop we will unpack and question different ways in which caste intersects with technology.

• Introduction
• Call for Participation
• Timeline
• Organizers
• We are here to help!

Introduction

HCI/CSCW scholarship has actively investigated harms that are perpetuated when historical, political, and social realities are sidelined within techno-scientific development and research. One such emerging site of investigation is caste, where scholars have shown how narratives of ‘casteless-ness’ are portrayed through lack of engagement with realities of caste in the world of computing and technology. There is emerging work examining the relationship between caste and technology, such as social media and generative AI, but there is little effort to conceptualize caste within HCI/CSCW.

While scholars have informally described this site of investigation as 'Caste Computing' or ‘Critical Caste and Technology Studies’, yet there exists no manifesto as to what it means or what its goals/values are? Therefore, in order to understand and define explorations of the caste field within HCI/CSCW research, we plan to gather diverse scholars, practitioners, and activists to initiate conversation around four themes: a) what is caste?, b) what is/is not caste computing/critical caste and technology studies?, c) what does caste as lens/framework/analytical category looks like to investigate various technologies?, d) what is the future agenda of caste and technology research?

This workshop provides a platform to complicate and critique the relationship between caste and techno-scientific assemblages to build anti-caste futures. While we are building solidarities with diverse liberation movements within our field, such as Cripping HCI and Decolonizing HCI, we also bring attention towards the unique complexity of the caste in this workshop to build sustained engagements. Addressing the complexity of caste requires building coalition and understanding with diverse thoughts and practices, and it is in this vein, we call participants to join us and build a space to engage with lived realities of caste.

Call for Participation

We are interested in and welcome a variety of submissions that engage with caste and technology, but also ideas that push the boundaries or build connections to caste through diverse research interest, e.g.: disability studies, critical race studies, queer studies, ubiquitous computing, cultural studies, de/post-colonial studies, power and knowledge, infrastructure, institution, political economy, civic technologies, information ecosystem, rurality, and more. Submissions could be informed through design, reflections, research, and even auto-ethnographic/personal experiences related to caste and technology. Participants can submit their contribution in following formats: 1-2 page interest statement, 3-6 page position papers, blog post, pictorial, abstracts, poems, or short video. Accepted submission will be featured on the workshop’s website as per SIGCHI requirement and guidelines.

A few guiding questions for submissions:

• How does caste manifests through unique techno-scientific artifacts across the world, such as organizations, social media, artificial intelligence, religion, work practices, labor, migration, and more?
• How does caste intersect or differ with overlapping systems of oppression (e.g. racism, sexism, colonialism, ableism, anti-fatness, etc)? And how does it inform the technologies we design?
• What would a critical theory of caste look like (if possible?) and how can it inform, expand, or complicate HCI/CSCW research?
• How can we think about caste beyond the markers of identities and geographies (e.g. South Asia(n))?

You can make a submission through this Google Form: https://forms.gle/eS5z3b7xvjeeSX316

We plan to accept 25-30 submissions, and each submission will be assessed by the members of the organizing team for the relevance and contribution to the workshop. At least one author from each submission has to participate/register for the in-person workshop, and due to CSCW’s policy we cannot provide hybrid participation (check our message at the end!)

Note: Please note that the early bird registration deadline for the conference is August 18, 2026. We will try our best to quickly send out notification on a rolling basis, but please feel free to reach out to Divyanshu (divyanshu.singh@colorado.edu) to simply request the access code to register for the workshop/conference.

Timeline

• Early Submission: until August 16, 2026 (anywhere on earth)
• Rolling Submission: until September 5, 2026
• Notification of acceptance: on rolling basis within 5-7 days of submission
• Workshop Date: Saturday, October 10 2026

Organizers

• Divyanshu Kumar Singh, University of Colorado Boulder
• Palashi Vaghela, Simon Fraser University
• Dipto Das, Cornell University
• Srravya Chandhiramowuli, University of Edinburgh
• Meenakshi Yadav, Texas A&M University
• Rida Qadri, Google Research
• Ashwin Rajadesingan, University of Texas at Austin
• Koustuv Saha, University of llinois Urbana-Champaign
• Bryan Semaan, University of Colorado Boulder

We are here to help!

© Workshop Organizers. This simple HTML website is inspired by Crip HCI workshop website (https://t1dsign.org/chi-2026/)