Touch to Make: An Index Finger’s Path into the Sculpture Factories in China
In spring of 2024, when green buds had already begun to appear even though light flurries were still falling in Rochester NY, I was slumped in the folding…
Tag: algorithms
Cultures of Trust in Computing and Beyond
What does it mean to trust? In this post I explore how there are specific ways of producing trust in computer science education. I draw on ethnographic fieldwork…
Algorithmic Imaginations in Agriculture: Automation?
In 2022, I was conducting my doctoral dissertation research on data-driven, automated digital farming technologies (drones, autosteering, sensors, GIS, smartphones, Big Data) in Turkey. Amidst the glo…
On Algorithmic Divination
Scientist operating an algorithmic divination machine as imagined by Midjourney’s AI (image by Author & Midjourney). Algorithms are tools of divination.[1] Like cowry shells, scapular bones,…
“The Day I Discovered I Was Collaborating on a Eugenics Project”: On Imponderables in Collaborative Research
The title that opens this reflection is a statement by computer scientist Sandra Avila, who is also a co-author of the lines that will flow here. Her account…
AI, Climate Adaptation, and Epistemic Injustice
Amid global climate impacts, vulnerable communities—including indigenous peoples, farmers, fisherfolk, and low-income groups—are frequently expected to adapt, change, and build resilience to uncerta…
Transpositioning, a Hypertext-ethnography
This is a work of hypertext-ethnography. It is based on my research of a small genetics laboratory in Tokyo, Japan where I am studying the impact of the…
If I Could Talk to the Algorithm
In the film Doctor Dolittle (1967), the title character yearns to “Talk to the Animals,” as the song goes, to understand their mysterious and often vexing ways. It…
Florian Jaton on his book, The Constitution of Algorithms
Interview by Ilana Gershon https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/constitution-algorithms Ilana Gershon: This book is about the formation processes of algorithms. What, for you, was the socio…
People Are Not Fixed Media
This browser does not support HTML5 audio Listen to an audio recording of this post as read by Ritwik Banerji Sensory ethnography continually emphasizes …
Human as the Ultimate Authority in Control
Illustration of algorithmically simulated flocking behavior (2021, created by Anna Lukina) With the growing size of historical data available to researchers and industrial practitioners, developing al…
Review: ‘Uberland: How Algorithms are Rewriting the Rules of Work’ by Alex Rosenblat
In Uberland: How algorithms are rewriting the future of work, technology ethnographer Alex Rosenblat tackles the political realities of the Silicon Valley mythos through one of its most…
Anti-Queer Violence, Bearing Witness, and Thinking with Algorithms on Social Media
(Nota: Esta publicación está disponible en español aquí.) In early June 2019, news began to break concerning the death of a Salvadoran transgender woman, Johana Medina León, of…
Clinical Data in the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs: Ethnographic Engagements
A screenshot of the Patient Care Assessment System dashboard, as it appears to clinicians using it in the electronic health record (Fihn and Box 2016). By: Peter Taber,…
Dumbwaiters and Smartphones: The Responsibility of Intelligence
“I don’t have to drink alone,” she paused for comedic effect, “now that I have Alexa.” Thus was the punchline of a story told by a widowed octogenarian…
Out-of-Body Workspaces: Andy Serkis and Motion Capture Technologies
Upper image, production shot of live action actor James Franco (Left) and Andy Serkis, with digital character superimposed (Right). Lower image, the finished shot of live action and…
Critiquing Big Data in China and Beyond
“I do think that the Internet truly makes us feel the world can become a smaller place,” an interlocutor, whom I will call Bo, told me in his…
Ghost Exchange: Complexity, Velocity, and Risk
Increased complexity leads to increased risk. Stock markets run by algorithms, creating virtual markets that even the experts have difficulty explaining. The “flash crash,” “dark pools,” and “high-fre…
Keep calm and trust the algorithm?
There is a joke among pilots—of course, I never heard any pilot actually saying the joke, but I found it online in plenty of commentaries about automation—according to…
Rule of Law by Machine? Not so Fast!
Editor’s Note: This is the sixth post in our Law in Computation series. Back in the mid-1990s when I was a graduate student, I “interned” at a parole…
Why do brands lose their chill? How bots, algorithms, and humans can work together on social media
Editor’s Note: The fourth contributor to the Co-designing with machines edition is Molly Templeton (@mollymeme), digital and social media expert, Director of Social Media at Everybody …
Falling in: how ethnography happened to me and what I’ve learned from it
Austin Toombs Editor’s Note: Austin Toombs (@altoombs) brings a background in computer science and a critical sensibility to his ethnographic research on maker cultures. He explores the formati…
Studying Up: The Ethnography of Technologists
Nick Seaver Editor’s Note: Nick Seaver (@npseaver) kicks off the March-April special edition of Ethnography Matters, which will feature a number of researchers at the Intel Science and Technolog…
March-April 2014: Studying Hackers, Makers, and Engineers
This month’s theme – ethnographies of hackers, makers, and engineers – is edited by Morgan G. Ames, who made the transition from being a hacker to studying them…