Beyond Bridging Divides: Examining the Goals of Digital Inclusion Practice in Post-Digital Societies

The widespread digitalisation of critical civic services in contexts of economic austerity, neoliberalism, and the COVID-19 pandemic, has renewed focus in HCI on interventions to enable digital access for populations considered 'digitally excluded'.While digital inclusion (DI) practitioners play a critical role in this area, their perspectives remain under-explored in HCI.This paper reports on a series of asset-based engagements with digital inclusion practitioners in the North East of England.These engagements explored the values, assets, and needs comprising their practices and used these insights as design material to ideate strategies for future intervention.We contribute findings describing the complexities, contradictions, and diversity of digital inclusion practices and efforts.Based on these findings, we argue for a shift towards considering DI practice through the lens of care, and provide directions for future HCI research to support DI practitioners in doing care work.