Technologies of Representation: Possibilities of Social Media in Tarlabaşı, Istanbul
Image posted by Selahaddin Abi on Facebook “Every week somebody comes here to take photos of our laundry and put it up on the internet. Today, I took…
Tag: Technology
Centrifugal Citation Conformity Machine
I was recently in an information briefing (which was very useful) about Web of Science and citations/searches. Here are some thoughts on how the system at present breeds…
Art, Algorithms, and the Physicality of the Virtual
Star Wars’ legion of fans were rewarded in rewarded in December 2019 with the long-awaited release of Star Wars, The Rise of Skywalker, filled with state-of-the-art computer graphics.…
Innocent images? The ethics of sharing your children’s photos online
There are collections of embarrassing childhood photos stashed in most parents’ homes. Everyone remembers an instance when those photos unexpectedly appeared in ways that were awkward or humiliating,…
Captivating Technology: Race, Carceral Technoscience, and Liberatory Imagination in Everyday Life by Naomi Zucker
Captivating Technology: Race, Carceral Technoscience, and Liberatory Imagination in Everyday Life. Ruha Benjamin, Ed. Duke University Press, 2019. 416 pages. “How might we craft a just…
Is Artificial Intelligence Magic?
Artificial intelligence can perform feats that seem like sorcery. AI can drive cars and fly drones. It can compose original music, write poetry that isn’t too awful, and…
Reciprocity in Silicon Valley: The prominent role of gift giving among tech entrepreneurs in the Bay Area
‘Marcel Mauss applied to Silicon Valley’ – by Vivienne Schröder During my three months of fieldwork in the Bay Area on the work/private life situation of early-stage tech…
Neolithic Plumbing: The Landscape is a Machine
Water is, among its many attributes, fluid. Left to its own devices it runs, spills, flows, leaks, crashes, and splashes. Holding H2O still is nearly impossible above 0°C.…
Video Games, Mental Health, and the Complicated Nature of Playing
Young man plays Fortnite at a gaming competition CC BY-SA 4.0 He melted into the shadows, pressing the ‘E’ key on his keyboard, activating his stealth skill, allowing…
Your Body as Part Machine
When you hear the word “cyborg,” scenes from the 1980s films RoboCop or The Terminator might spring to mind. But the futuristic characters made famous in those films…
Space, Futures, Tech at “Changing Climates” — AAA/CASCA 2019
Space, Futures, Tech at “Changing Climates” — AAA/CASCA 2019 A list of space, futures, and tech related papers, panels, and roundtables, at the joint meeting of the Canadian Anthropology Society…
Archiving for the Anthropocene: Notes from the Field Campus
On a chilly Sunday afternoon in March, our Field Campus group walked through downtown Granite City, Illinois. Located just 6 miles north of St. Louis, the downtown was…
Morgan Ames on The Charisma Machine
On Henry Jenkins’ blog, he interview Morgan Ames about the One Laptop Per Child project. With Jenkins’ permission, I am re-posting the interview here (but see the…
The power (and disempowerment) of Menstrual Hygiene Management
Development initiatives focused on menstrual health and sanitary pads in Southern countries actually disempower women as knowers and innovators.
Optics and Fluidity: Evading Surveillance in Hong Kong
請點此閱讀中文版 Eyes in/on/for Hong Kong At the Hong Kong airport, thousands of protesters line the arrivals hall. Creating a corridor for passengers to walk through, they stand silently,…
Lecture/Seminar: Ethnography and Digital Media 2019
In this lecture/seminar at the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, we discuss how ethnography contributes to the exploration, description and understanding of digitally mediated processes…
Vijayanka Nair takes the page 99 test
My dissertation is an ethnographic study of India’s Aadhaar (foundation) program, a colossal technocratic project that seeks to redefine how the Indian state (over)sees its population. Under the…
No insides on the outsides
“The main goal and mission of a content moderator is to clean up the dirt.” — unnamed content moderator in The Cleaners (00:06:20). All systems must rid themselves…
Ep #46 Reconfigurable: Elanor Huntington talks engineering, anthropology, & how we’re making our world
“Not only do we need engineers working alongside anthropologists to do good quality engineering, I also think that we need to do an anthropology of engineers… Engineers are…
Negotiating Ethical Technology Use: Trust and Care in End-of-Life Conversations
The video-screen carrying robot used by doctors to converse with patients. The headline on the local news station’s website was sensational: “Bereaved Family Upset Kaiser Used Robot…
Choreographies of magic and mess: AusSTS in Melbourne and Darwin
As the presenter encouraged the academics in the room to consider what it means for nanotechnology to sell itself as ‘magic’, boots appeared outside the window behind him.…
Web Roundup: Lunar Bodies by Blair Bainbridge
The past month has been a big one for the moon. There was a total solar eclipse across Chile and Argentina on July 2, a partial lunar eclipse…
Can Anthropologists Propel Astronauts Toward Mars?
Jack Stuster poses with a NASA space shuttle. Jack Stuster In the fall of 1957, the Soviet Union satellite Sputnik 1 streaked across the night’s sky. The event kicked off…
Our Governor Resigned via Facebook: #RickyRenuncia, Puerto Rico’s Summer of Protest
Disponible en español aquí. On July 13th, the Centro de Periodismo Investigativo (Center for Investigative Journalism) leaked 889 pages of a Telegram App chat between the governor of…