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…
Tag: Technology
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…
Lilly Irani on her book, Chasing Innovation
https://press.princeton.edu/titles/13362.html Lilly Irani, in conversation with Christopher Kelty (Note: Interview was transcribed, unlike many other interviews on this site which are conducted by e…
Seminar: Media Activism
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:OccupyHandSignals.pdf For the MA Program “Visual and Media Anthropology” at the Free University Berlin, I am organizing a newly developed semi…
Mack Hagood on his new book, Hush: Media and Sonic Self-Control
https://www.dukeupress.edu/hush Interview by Jacob Smith Jacob Smith: Hush offers a strikingly original take on the history of devices and practices that offer control over the sonic environment. As…
Book: Ritualisierung – Mediatisierung – Performance
Luger, M., Graf, F., & Budka, P. (Eds.). (2019). Ritualisierung – Mediatisierung – Performance. (Ritualization – Mediatization – Performance). Göttingen: V&R Unipress/…
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…
How I kicked chronic migraine (And what that has to do with anthropology)
This post is about the biopsychosocial medical model and how it relates to the treatment of chronic pain. As an anthropologist, I’m particularly interested in the social part…
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…
Book Chapter: Indigenous Media Technologies in “The Digital Age”
Budka, P. (2019). Indigenous media technologies in “the digital age”: Cultural articulation, digital practices, and sociopolitical concepts. In S. S. Yu & M. D. Matsaganis (Eds.), …
Mapping USA electronics manufacturing pollution
The US ‘tech sector’ has been a major source of toxicant releases. These interactive maps show the chemical legacy of electronic manufacturing in the US.
Ep. #32 ‘Hula Hoops not Bicycles’: Genevieve Bell talks Anthropology, Technology & Building the Future
“We were bringing the voices of people that didn’t get inside the building, inside the building and making them count. And I took that as an incredible responsibility,…
The NASA Ames Junk Tent
History matters when explaining why we should fund NASA’s science. A junk tent with broken exhibits doesn’t tell that story. If you ever need a NASA logo pattern to…
Silicon Satire
How memes articulate tech trouble and signal “all the things.” History repeats itself, “the first time as tragedy, the second as farce”—especially in Silicon Valley. In April 2018,…
Seminar: Digital & Visual Technologies as Material Culture
In the summer term 2019, I am giving a seminar on digital and visual technologies as material culture at the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology (MA &…
Tech Startup Culture: ‘I am machine’
By Vivienne Schröder For my master Anthropology at the VU Amsterdam, I am doing three months of fieldwork in San Francisco, where I am researching Tech Startup Culture.…
Writing disability
Writing inequalities Writing disability through rewriting representations of inequality and vulnerability. Image: R. Cupitt 2018 When writing inequalities, the language we use and our writings betray …
Japan’s Emerging Emotional Tech
Are we developing emotional machines with all-too-human capacities for care? An interactive scene from Gatebox Inc.’s promotional video. Gatebox Inc. There is a moment in Spike Jonze’s film…