English

Surviving the Narrative Collapse: Sustainability and Justice in Computing Within Limits

Computers and Society 2025-08-13 v2

Abstract

Sustainability-driven computing research - encompassing equity, diversity, climate change, and social justice - is increasingly dismissed as woke or even dangerous in many sociopolitical contexts. As misinformation, ideological polarisation, deliberate ignorance and reactionary narratives gain ground, how can sustainability research in computing continue to exist and make an impact? This paper explores these tensions through Fictomorphosis, a creative story retelling method that reframes contested topics through different genres and perspectives. By engaging computing researchers in structured narrative transformations, we investigate how sustainability-oriented computing research is perceived, contested, and can adapt in a post-truth world.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2508.05992,
  title  = {Surviving the Narrative Collapse: Sustainability and Justice in Computing Within Limits},
  author = {Dave Guruge and Samuel Mann and Ruth Myers and Oliver Bates and Mikey Goldweber and Andy Williamson and Jon Lasenby and Ian Brooks},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2508.05992},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

Post-proceedings paper presented at LIMITS 2025: 11th Workshop on Computing within Limits, 2025-06-26/27, Online

R2 v1 2026-07-01T04:40:21.448Z