Research | Platypus

Tracing the Legacy of Human Resilience in the Debris of Ancient Campfires

 Aylar Abdolahzadeh  June 8, 2026

این محتوا همچنین به زبان انگلیسی موجود است.

In the summer of 2015, I was a first-year graduate student when I joined a field project at La Ferrassie, a Neandertal’ site tucked into the Périgord region of southwest France. We camped in the backyard of the late Harold Dibble’s dig house in the small town of Carsac-Aillac, where the morning air smelled of walnuts and apple trees, and the sunset turned the golden bales of hay into glowing embers each evening (Fig 1). (read more...)

“Is This the End of Disability?”: Eugenics and the Technification of Normalization

 Cristian Gustavo Gutiérrez Pinzón  June 3, 2026

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New reproductive and bodily intervention biotechnologies not only promise to cure or prevent diseases, but are also shaping a new regime of bodily normalization that redefines which lives are desirable, correctable, or eliminable. For several years, countries such as Iceland have stood out for medical procedures that identify the conditions under which a fetus is developing and then ask parents whether they wish to continue or terminate the pregnancy. Between 80–85% of pregnant women in Iceland undergo prenatal screening and, when the result is positive for trisomy 21, termination rates approach 100%. In Denmark the percentage is 98%, in France 77%, and in the United States 67%. Geneticist Kari Stefansson, founder of deCODE Genetics, stated: “My understanding is, basically, that we have almost eradicated Down syndrome from our society; there will hardly ever again be a child with Down syndrome in Iceland” (Quijano, 2017). (read more...)

Food (In)Security Under the Microscope

 Leonardo Vilaça Dupin, Ana Paula Perrota, Rosângela Pezza Cintrão  June 2, 2026

Este conteúdo também está disponivel em português.

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In November 2025, in Rio de Janeiro, the seminar (in)SAM — “Food (in)Security Under the Microscope: Rethinking the Relationship Between Food Systems, Microorganisms, and Sanitary Norms” — brought together researchers from different countries and professionals from various fields of knowledge for two days, with the aim of contributing to the development of inclusive sanitary norms for non-industrial food production. The panel discussions, which featured social science researchers and leaders from traditional peoples and communities, addressed topics such as: challenges for multispecies planetary health and for promoting food and nutritional sovereignty and security; food, microorganisms, and sanitary regulations; biopolitics in global food systems, agribusiness, and the production of large-scale (in)securities; and methodological and interdisciplinary challenges for research and regulations involving microorganisms. (read more...)

Domesticating Affordances: From Surveillance to Navigation of Interfaces, How Affordances Are Reappropriated across Contexts by Rural Indian Women

 Debjani Chakraborty  May 29, 2026

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Joginder Kaur (54) had no formal schooling. For her, phone calls always meant pressing the green button to receive a call. Dialling numbers or navigating menus were not part of that routine—until they became unavoidable. In came emojis, used to mark different people in her contact list: Birds, hearts, and just a smiley face. Each representing a new contact. (read more...)

Introducing Citizen Technology: Ethnographic Insights from Makerspaces

 Sandrine Lambert  May 25, 2026

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When I first arrived at the makerspace known as Fab Casa del Mig, in the Sants neighborhood of Barcelona, I crossed a large urban park called La España Industrial. I later learned that the park occupies the site of a former textile factory with the same name. Walking through the park, I passed people walking their dogs, groups playing basketball or pétanque, and others simply spending time with their family there. At the end of the park stands Fab Casa del Mig, the last remaining building of this former industrial complex. Inside, there is a large makerspace. (read more...)

Becoming Experts: Activists Working Against Science Based on Misinformation

 Kaitlyn Kathleen Rabach  May 22, 2026

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In County Donegal, Ireland, an estimated 30,000 buildings are crumbling due to governmental and commercial mishandling of building materials such as concrete. A lack of urgency in governmental response has left homeowners living with severe mold, electrical risks, structural cracks and the impending threat of their homes collapsing, see image below. Homeowners have described living in these homes as being in a constant state of fear—fear their homes will crumble on top of them but also fear that the government they once trusted “to do right by them” will never fix their homes. (read more...)

Animals in War: Multispecies Agency and the Memory of the Colombian Armed Conflict

 Valeria Sánchez-Prieto  May 6, 2026

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In one testimony from Colombia’s armed conflict, a parrot named Lola repeated the phrases she heard around her: “Paraco asesino” (“paramilitary murderer”), “Viva la guerrilla” (“long live the guerrilla”), and “The vultures are coming” Her voice condensed the sounds, fears, and political tensions of war into a multispecies archive of memory. Far from being passive witnesses, animals moved within the infrastructures of conflict as companions, alarms, transportation, and sometimes even weapons. Yet these violent incorporations are only the most extreme expression of a broader multispecies world of conflict. (read more...)

What Would Happen if Ethnographers Learned to Process Signals?

 Mauricio Baez  May 1, 2026

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During my doctoral research, focused on neuroscience laboratories and their forms of engagement with other spaces in the city of Bogotá, Colombia, I have been observing how artists and researchers use different processes to modulate, transform, and process biological signals in order to create artistic works. This experience led me to try to learn how to use the same software they employ. I created a small piece that I would like to show, along with a brief presentation of some of the reflections that emerged from it. (read more...)