VAoJ S2023RT Arc @ Yokohama Stadium: Hanshin Tigers vs. Yokohama DeNA Baystars (6/25/23)
So after I disembarked the bullet train, I made my way to my hotel (very close to the stadium), dropped off my luggage and went to the game.…
Tag: research
The VAoJ Summer 2023 Research Trip Arc (prologue)
It has been almost 4 years since I have been able to travel for research. I returned to the field last week. Here are some clues about where…
A Failure in Capture: An Experiment in Multimodal Interactive Ethnography where ‘Nothing Happens’
The video below this text is interactive.[1] To view, click play and follow the instructions you see on the screen. As you watch, look for areas that you…
Book Review | Native Bias: Overcoming Discrimination Against Immigrants by Donghyun Danny Choi et al.
In Native Bias: Overcoming Discrimination Against Immigrants, Donghyun Danny Choi, Mathias Poertner and Nicholas Sambanis present the results of field work experiments conducted in Germany to understa…
Platypod, Episode Seven: An Anthropology of Data, AI, and Much More
Download the transcript of this interview. For this episode of Platypod, I talked to Dr. Tanja Ahlin about her research, work, and academic trajectory. She’s currently a postdoctoral…
Radio Guest: “Anthropologist traces the “multi-species politics” of javelinas and humans”
I was a guest on the Marfa Public Radio show, Nature Notes, discussing my research on human-javelina relations in Texas. Listen for a sneak peek at some of…
The Illness Experience of a Forty-year-old Hispanic Woman
Different cultural upbringings can determine a person’s illness experience. The relationship between the experience of a patient, and in turn, a course of treatment is inherently valuable to…
Dissertation Manuscript Outline: Human-Javelina Relations in Texas
Humans and Javelinas: Something Something… I need a title … This study is motivated by the broad pressing question: How do we live in a world full of…
Paleoanthropology: The Ancestor Worshipping Death Cult
Firstly, this is satire. I love all of my paleoanthropologist friends. Paleoanthropology is a scientific discipline dedicated to illuminating our evolutionary history. However, it is also a low-k…
An Anthropology of Algorithmic Recommendation Systems
On the morning of Friday, March 10, 2023 Nick Seaver and I met over Zoom to talk about his new book Computing Taste: Algorithms and Makers of Music…
Invisible Labor of Health and the Spell of Productivity
When I talked with Jia, who works for an e-commerce company in Shanghai, China, she was trying to finish a “Perfect Month Challenge” on her Apple Watch. That…
Dissertation Update: “On Anthropomorphism”
I’ve sent off the first section of my dissertation to my advisor. This section is going in the introduction around the theoretical and methodological foundations of the study.Next…
Why I Study Human-Animal Relations as an Anthropologist
Anthropology is the study of humans, or as Dr. Jon Marks says: “the study of who we are and where we come from.” I consider it to be…
Grafting with Care: Encountering Human-Plant Relations Through Experiments with Roses
Introduction When seen through the experiences and histories of experimentation and care, plants such as roses can bring new insights into the affective and material entanglements of more-than-human…
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…
Uncovering Ethnography in Creative Practice Research with Machines
A live performance of Oliver Bown’s Zamyatin system with clarinetist François Houle This blog post comes out of a discussion with Ritwik Banerji about the ‘hidden’ role of…
Beauty Filters: New Tech, Old Problems
Retaining a youthful appearance is a laborious and painful exercise, often rife with invisible labor. Digital beauty tech has made it much easier. Rather than altering our own…
You Are What You Grow: Crops, Cultivation, and Caste in India
The allure of the onion Fieldwork can produce odd obsessions. As an anthropologist studying agrarian risk economies, mine was onions. In the central Indian region of Malwa where…
Toxicity, Violence, and the Legacies of Mercury and Gold Mining in Colombia
Stubborn substances and toxic legacies Toxic substances are often portrayed as stubborn molecules that resist being restricted to the places where we would like to contain them in…
Making a Multispecies Community in the Texas Hill Country: AAA2022 Talk
Below is a recording of the talk I am giving in person at the 2022 annual American Anthropological Association meeting on November 10. Video of my talk
Platypod, Episode Four: Connections and Disconnections on Social Media
Platypod In this episode, Platypod presents a conversation between Baird Campbell (Rice University) and Ilana Gershon (Indiana University Bloomington). They discuss the politics of connection and disc…
LaMDA and the Limits of Sentience
In early June, Blake Lemoine, then an engineer at Google, claimed that LaMDA, a Machine Learning-based chatbot, was sentient and needed to be treated with respect. LaMDA stands…
Embracing Black Positionalities, (Re)Centring Slowness: A Challenge to Anthropology’s Anti-Racism Efforts
Anti-racism efforts remain highly problematic. As anthropologists, we are usually aware of the violent, colonial, and genocidal histories of research on ‘race’ and realities of racism which have…