The Ones Who Walk Away from the Internet
In the Andean cosmovision, constellations are not formed by connecting the dots of stars, but rather from the spaces of darkness in the night sky. The most important…
Tag: Latin America
Feeling Adrift in the Ethnography of a Laboratory
This semester, I officially began my fieldwork for my doctoral dissertation in the city of Bogotá. As part of an ethnography, I will be wandering through different neuroscience…
For the Flourishing of Feminist Sciences: Distributing Seeds from the RAFeCT Network
For at least four decades, feminist researchers have been questioning science, laying the foundations for a critique that is proving increasingly fundamental and urgent. In a political and…
STS Academic Publishing As a Work of Service and Hope: A Conversation with Vivette García-Deister
Thinking, writing, and publishing from Latin America pose significant challenges, especially for younger researchers. Academic work is affected by various kinds of asymmetries, but when we add to…
Is it time to rethink participatory democracy under urban capitalism?
Markus Holdo’s Participatory Spaces Under Urban Capitalism examines how citizens engage with and leverage power through participatory institutions in capitalist societies. The book is meticulously res…
When adrenaline draws you in. Reflections on film and skydiving in the aftermath of Argentina’s ‘dirty war’
I am currently wrapping up an essay film, Falling, about my fraught relationship with Pepe and his brother, two retired Argentine military officers whom I met during my…
Experimental Methodologies for Listening to the Present: An Interview with Alejandra Osejo-Varona
This Women’s History Month, we are publishing an interview with Colombian anthropologist Alejandra Osejo-Varona (Rice University). Her ethnographic work is influenced by Latin American feminist …
On Menstruation and Feeling Shame
Menstruation as a subject of study is not new. Margaret Mead, Mary Douglas, Chris Bobel, Miren Guillo, and Karina Felitti, among many others, have discussed how menstruation has…
The Evolution of the Digital Divide: New Dimensions of Digital Inequality
This text explores the evolution of digital inequality, highlighting how emerging phenomena pose new challenges to digital inclusion, particularly with the incorporation of artificial intelligence (AI…
Critical Metals, Magic Tricks, and Energy Transition: A Social Biography of Lithium
A passage from the novel Hurricane Season by Fernanda Melchor reads: La Matosa was slowly dotted once more with shacks and shanties raised on the bones of those…
Lynette Arnold on her book, Living Together Across Borders
Diego Arispe-Bazán: The argument of the book hinges on the concepts of communicative care and convivencia (living together). How did you identify these phenomena ethnographically, and how have…
On Disability, Infrastructure, and Shame
Content note: This piece centers an evolving journey with internalized ableism and accompanying feelings of virtue and shame, particularly around public transportation, driving, and accessibility. Rea…
Audio Ethnographies of Water from Latin America: Confluences of the Domestic
Much of the water that enters homes in metro Guadalajara, Jalisco is toxic. Water from the tap is used to wash dishes and water plants, but for decades…
Audio Ethnographies of Water from Latin America: Aquatic Attractions
Forty years ago, four hippos arrived in Colombia. Drug trafficker Pablo Escobar illegally imported them as part of his project to build an open-door zoo at Hacienda Naples,…
Audio Ethnographies of Water from Latin America: Attend the Rains
Each night and day in the industrial port of Ciudad del Carmen (Campeche, Mexico), dozens of Pemex oil platform workers roll their small suitcases across the concrete as…
Audio Ethnographies of Water from Latin America: Water, Energy, and Youth in the Orinoco River, Colombia
July is part of the heavy rainfall season of South America’s northernmost savannas, known since colonial times as the Llanos (Plains/Grasslands) and, more recently, from a biogeographical perspe…
Audio Ethnographies of Water from Latin America: Introduction
Inspired by Feld’s (2015) work on sound, in this collection of essays, we bring five ethnographers from Latin America to think about their research through the sounds of…
Democracy, power, knowledge, and health: questions for the future of social medicine
This essay aims to explore possibilities and challenges for the future of Social Medicine.[1] It is inspired by empirical ethnographic research, as part of a PhD in Collective…
Review: Have You Eaten Yet?
Cheuk Kwan. Have You Eaten Yet?: Stories from Chinese Restaurants Around the World. Pegasus Books. New York and London. 2023. ISBN: 978-1-63936-334-6. pp. 260. …
Interactive Science Museums: Replicating Science Without a Context
“We want a different museum. One where people are not afraid to interact with the objects” were the words[1] of one of the promoters of the ITINTEC museum,…
Counting on Montane Birds: Biologists, Verticality, and Territorial Defense in Colombia
This piece is about the unforeseen and sometimes overlooked connection between (i) birds living in the forests of Colombia’s high tropical Andes, (ii) local biologists supporting an anti-mining…
An Ecology of Knowledges: An Interview with Micha Rahder
An Ecology of Knowledges: Fear, Love, and Technoscience in Guatemalan Forest Conservation By Micha Rahder, Independent Scholar 336pp. Durham, NC: Duke University Press § Colin Hoag spoke…
Maka Suarez: Thinking about debt with David Graeber and La PAH
Let me begin by saying “this is a thought experiment”; a phrase David often used, and I find useful. In this talk I’d like to propose an approach…
Helicopter Images: Mediating Injustice in Environmental Film
Marian Ahn Thorpe, Princeton University § The fictional movie Even the Rain (Bollaín 2010) tells the story of a Spanish-Mexican team as it attempts to make a drama…