Beyond Hybrids

This paper offers a critical reflection on the term "hybrid"? a term describing the merging of distinct and often contradictory entities. We trace how the term has been taken up in HCI's programs of design research to explore resolutions between two disparate entities, typically human and machine or the digital and analog. Drawing from programs of feminist technoscience, we suggest an alternative metaphor for designing coproductions. This approach emphasizes the contradictory and collective work of smoothly integrating social categories. We show how designing coproductions begins by locating places where categories break down-where humans are like machines or where the digital can be experienced physically-and uses design to draw out and reflect upon the ever-changing relationship with digital and non-digital domains.