When Am I? How Historiography Can Inform Positionality In HCI

Positionality is rapidly becoming an accepted and necessary aspect of conducting well contextualised and reflected research in HCI, yet it remains controversial. This short paper compares and contrasts the nature of positionality in HCI against the position of a historian and their facts, highlighting some similarities but more importantly demonstrating the impact that time and reflection can have on the way the author situates themselves and their work in the broader trends of society and culture. We take two pieces of respected and long-standing historiography and use them to situate current discourse of positionality in HCI to reveal methods, techniques and perspectives from the study of History that can be leveraged by the HCI practitioner.