See our website: CHIinHawaii.info for more.

The presence of CHI 2024 in Hawaiʻi is in blatant disregard for the rights and sovereignty of Kānaka Maoli (Native Hawaiians), and Kamaʻāina (locals), who are severely negatively impacted by over-tourism and climate degradation. This has been punctuated by the Maui fires, the deadliest in the USA in more than a century, which devastated the historic town of Lahaina and left 100+ people dead, with over 1000 people still missing. My heart and my community are devastated, and all CHI can do is open up paper submissions and push people to attend a conference in a broken community.

The CHI Steering and Organizing committees have repeatedly dismissed calls to relocate (for the past four years) and continue to ignore the impact of the fires. I (Josiah Hester, a Kānaka Maoli Professor in Computing) now call on the community of researchers engaged in decolonizing CHI and pushing towards a more equitable world to limit involvement in CHI 2024 in any form.

We recommend scientists and researchers in SIGHCHI do the following in solidarity:

• Do not submit papers to CHI
• Do not review papers from CHI
• Do not attend CHI

“A community first and a vacation destination second.”

CHI has declared that the conference’s theme will be “Surfing the World,” claiming that this “represents its commitment to inviting everyone to explore and advance the frontiers of human-computer interaction.” This promise rings hollow when the CHI steering committee silences Native Hawaiian voices and brushes aside concerns raised repeatedly and respectfully over the past few years. 

SIGCHI’s mission to "...create and shape how people interact with technology and understand how technologies impact people’s lives" while disregarding the negative impacts of their own decisions and actions is hypocritical and damaging to the reputation of a conference and area that is supposed to represent how Computing can be Inclusive, Diverse, Equitable, and Decolonizing. 

Hawaiʻi is not an empty backdrop for a dream vacation or corporate gathering. It is a living, breathing community with a complex history of colonization and ongoing struggles for justice. The impact of conferences like CHI 2024 on Hawaiʻi's local communities and overwhelmed ecosystem is significant, contributing to the very issues that Native Hawaiians are striving to address. Furthermore, Hawaii can no longer support this tourism level after the historic dual crises of the COVID-19 pandemic and the Maui fires. Hawaii must be seen through the words of Maui Mayor Michael Victorino: “A community first and a vacation destination second."

I demand that the organizers take a hard look at their actions and demonstrate a commitment to the ACM code of ethics which states we must  “Avoid harm,” rather than perpetuating the exploitation and disrespect of Indigenous land and culture and hurting locals devastated by the historic Maui fires. 

To potential attendees, I encourage you to make the ethical choice by refraining from participating in CHI 2024 and using your absence to send a powerful message to CHI. We cannot ignore the rights and concerns of Indigenous people (and locals in Hawaii) in pursuing our professional interests.

See our website: CHIinHawaii.info for more.