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Venture Capital’s Due Diligence, or Ethnography’s Adversarial Twin?

A building with a large dark tiled sloped roof, strung with warm string lights, stands at dusk in a plaza flanked by tall high-rise apartment towers. The wet pavement reflects the lights, and a small group of people gather near a glowing blue circular archway at the building's entrance.
Al Lim September 4, 2026
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On a crypto builders’ night in late September 2023, I lingered in the crowd after the event. It was hosted in a crypto company’s newly renovated office in the center of Bangkok. Skipping the cold pizza (mostly due to my lactose intolerance), I made my way towards a friend who worked in that company, one of the only people I knew in the packed room. He made a few introductions before disappearing back into the crowd, leaving me beside a local Thai founder in his early 30s, Noon (a pseudonym), building a decentralized finance (DeFi) product for futures and margin trading. (read more...)

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A women in saree standing on the shore surrounded by boats, arranged in an unaligned manner. She bends into a blue bag of fishes and her hands are in the bag.

Silt, Sea and Coastal Engineering

Sridhar Raghavan September 2, 2026
இந்த உள்ளடக்கம் தமிழிலும் கிடைக்கிறது.
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This picture from Vellapallam on the Bay of Bengal coast tells a story. While the obvious one is a story on the invisible gendered labour aspects of fishery, this essay will focus on another observation from the picture – Why does the fish end up needing so much cleaning in the first place? The fish, the net on the yellow tarpaulin, the fisherman’s shirt, all seen covered with clayey silt. What is the story of this tiny silt and its role in making the coasts? (read more...)

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Seven irregularly shaped fragments from two wisdom teeth, arranged from largest (left) to smallest (right). An intact equine incisor is positioned between the fourth and fifth fragments.

A Horse in the Archive: Notes on Incompleteness in Biometric Infrastructures

kayah August 31, 2026
Este conteúdo também está disponível em português.
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A few months ago, I underwent four surgeries to remove two wisdom teeth. Long and painful, they took from me solid parts with strange shapes — a friend, on seeing one of the pieces, said it looked like a shark’s tooth! It was a slow, drawn-out experience: after each surgery, I had to recover before starting the next stage of the same process. During each one, I heard the dentist and her assistants discussing how stubbornly that tooth was attached to my skull. (read more...)

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“Can You Hear Me Now?”: Listening in China’s Romance Simulation Games

Naijia Liu August 28, 2026
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I was clicking through a game studio’s website when an image caught my eye. In a warm, cozy office, several people sit in front of their laptops, heads slightly tilted, listening carefully through headsets and taking notes. In the background, cartoonish banners on the walls display the phrases “Leave a comment” and “After hearing the players’ voices, what are your thoughts?” in large font. People gather to stick their notes onto the wall or read the ones written by others. The accompanying text reads: “Through all the challenges, it is the support and companionship of our customers that has fueled our pursuit of dreams… Our team sat in the player experience hall, where we carefully listened to the voices of our players.” (read more...)

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A large group of people gathers on a grassy field with tents, tables, chairs, and activities for children.

The Kids Are AI-right

Manar Naser August 26, 2026
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In January of 2026, I found myself as an instructional assistant in a fifth-grade English Language Arts class, where I would work with small groups to improve students’ writing. I developed a system where I would reward my students with one piece of candy in exchange for one essay. The system worked out great, but it soon reached a point where students would ask me for candy in the halls without an essay. One day, Kay , a strong yet uninterested writer, asked me for a Jolly Rancher. I asked if she had an essay for me. Kay giggled and asked, “Can I use ChatGPT to write it?” Her tone conveyed sarcasm, implying that if she used ChatGPT to write the essay, she would not have to do the work to get the reward. By telling this joke, she already knew what my answer would be. I was taken aback. How does a fifth grader already know about ChatGPT and its social problems? It seems obvious now, but at the time, I just said “no, you are not allowed to use AI to write your essays.” Kay giggled and skipped away, confirming that she knew using ChatGPT was never an option in the first place. (read more...)

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A stream, shaded by trees, flows through an urban area. On the left, people gather on the sidewalk, while a road runs along the right.

Dispatch from Seoul: Reflections on the Science, Technology & Human Values Science and Technology Studies School, June 2026

Lachlan Hensey August 24, 2026
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It is the third of our four days at the 2026 ST&HV Science and Technology Studies (STS) School. We file past laboratories populated by white-coated researchers and take our seats in a classroom in Seoul National University’s (SNU) College of Natural Sciences. “Look – real scientists!” someone jokes as we sit down. (read more...)

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Image of the author looking at the camera, wearing a red shirt. Their hair is pulled back with a red clip.

In the Pensive Pause of Supervision: A Footnote on Citing Santos

Tanu Biswas August 20, 2026
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Author’s editorial prelude: In what follows, I open up insight into a micro-moment of everyday scholarly life which shows itself through the body; like that slightly deeper breath which follows while one is thinking through a problem that occupies the mind. Such fleeting moments pass unnoticed, yet they are part of the labour and effort of what counts as teaching and supervision ‘work’. I believe there is value in turning attention to and staying with such moments as they quietly shape how one thinks, reads, judges, writes, teaches, supervises and such. My request to the reader is to stay present with the moment, the internal self-talk, and recalls that I describe in this piece. A request that places a demand on the reader to perform the sometimes-tedious task of curbing the desire to go beyond the moment that is the subject of analytical attention. (read more...)

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Masa üzerindeki beyaz desenli bir plastik poşetin üzerine sarı, pembe ve beyaz mumlar dizilmiş. Görüntünün sol tarafındaki sarı bir mumun üzerinde bir kadının eli duruyor. Mumların hepsi farklı boyutlarda; ayrıca hepsinin oyulmuş ve şekillendirilmiş bir görünümleri var. Beyaz olanlar en ince, pembe olanlar ise en kalın mumlar.

From Candle to Dilator: Treating Vaginismus in Turkey

Neslihan Sen August 18, 2026
Bu içeriğe türkçe’de de erişilebilir.
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Aysel brought out her candles wrapped in stretch wrap and put them on the coffee table in the middle of our interview. She was very proud of showing her progress to me through these home-made candle dildos. When she brought them out to the living room, I was still sipping my tea and my half-eaten piece of cake she baked for me was now sitting next to her candles on the coffee table. She made these dildos herself with the help of her sister-in-law, her elti,  in her kitchen by shaping them, melting them thinner, and combining them together for different sizes so she could use them as apparatuses to treat her vaginismus, the inability to engage in penile-vaginal intercourse. (read more...)

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