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…
Tag: Technology
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…
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.