Series | Platypus

Series Introduction: The Politics of Writing About Platform Workers’ Organizing

 Isha Bhallamudi, Anushree Gupta  November 4, 2025

We are a group of scholars and researchers who work with gig and platform worker unions in India in various capacities. We form the India chapter of the Labor Tech Research Network collective, and have been meeting regularly from across the globe to share cross-sectoral organizing strategies, track the political landscape around gig & platform unions, and discuss research and reflections from our place-based engagements. Our work sits at the critical intersection of scholarship and activism. It involves amplifying workers’ voices, supporting unionisation efforts, and supporting workers in their struggles to lead more dignified and just working lives. Our discussions have inspired us to put together this blog series on the politics of writing about platform workers’ organizing. (read more...)

Uterus Transplantation: A Scientific Advance or the Reflection of Gender Stereotypes?

 Juliana Vieira  October 27, 2025

Este conteúdo também está disponível em português

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Uterus transplantation has been touted as one of the most innovative reproductive technologies in recent years (Brännström 2018). The procedure allows women without a uterus to become pregnant and give birth using a donated organ, which is removed after the baby is born in most cases (Brännström 2024). But behind this advancement, there is also a debate about the values and beliefs that drive the development of this technology. After all, to what extent do highly innovative medical technologies, such as uterus transplantation, cease to express a progressive vision of the future and instead reinforce morally conservative values related to motherhood, gender, and gestation? Could this really be a solution to a medical problem, or is it a response to a social construct that prioritizes biological motherhood over other forms of parenthood? (Luna 2004; Luna 2007). (read more...)

Necrovitality and Porous Exclusions: On Dying amidst Chemical Vitalities

 Misria Shaik Ali  October 9, 2025

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Note: This post contains images of skin wounds. If you are dermatophobic, read/view at your own discretion. You may instead listen to the post. An entry into the world through the pore urges us to see the chemical and material world as vital, volatile, viscous, transcorporeal–some of the topics addressed in the Platypus series, “Witnessing the porous world.” Jane Bennett, in describing and diving into the “life of metal,” begins by asking, “can nonorganic bodies also have a life? Can materiality itself be vital?” (2009, 53). Life, for Bennett as they converse with philosophers Deleuze and Nietzsche is, “a-subjective” and “impersonal” (54). Bennett’s effort to “avoid anthropocentrism and biocentrism”, leads them to “material” and “metallic vitality” that is imminent from “vacancies,” “holes,” and “cracks” that render material “porous” (59-61). (read more...)

Reflections on a Feminist Anthropology or a Mutirão Anthropology: Karipuna Girls and Women

 Ana Manoela Karipuna  September 30, 2025

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I am an Indigenous woman from Karipuna people and an anthropologist living in Belém, one of the largest cities in the Brazilian Amazon in the state of Pará. However, my Indigenous community is based elsewhere. The Karipuna people live in the Uaçá, Galibi and Juminã Indigenous Lands in the municipality of Oiapoque, in the northern part of the state of Amapá, on the border between Brazil and French Guiana. The Palikur, the Galibi Marworno and the Galibi Kali’na people also live here. This context is important for understanding the themes I will explore. My identity as an Indigenous woman and anthropologist informs my writing, offering insights into the connections between Indigenous Karipuna women, anthropology, empowerment, the women’s movement, and feminism. (read more...)

For the Flourishing of Feminist Sciences: Distributing Seeds from the RAFeCT Network

 Clarissa Reche  August 28, 2025

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For at least four decades, feminist researchers have been questioning science, laying the foundations for a critique that is proving increasingly fundamental and urgent. In a political and scientific landscape that is becoming ever more arid, tense, and hostile to the struggles for transformation and social justice, it is with great joy and enthusiasm that we present this series of four posts written by Brazilian feminist anthropologists and intended for academic readers specialising in STS, as well as for readers in broader feminist networks and activist/grassroots communities. (read more...)

Hawa-laat: Polluted Air in Delhi, India

 Vasundhara Bhojvaid  August 7, 2025

 यह पोस्ट हिंदी में भी उपलब्ध है ।

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In 2015, I was back in India’s capital city, Delhi after two years of fieldwork in villages in rural parts of the country. On my return, the city had changed. There was something different in the atmosphere, which was leading to far-reaching, unexpected effects. For instance, during my morning commutes as I turned on the radio to one of Delhi’s most popular radio stations the radio jockey blared every hour or so, ‘Hawa-laat’! The Hindi word Hawalaat translates as a prison. If the word is broken into two parts, Hawa and Laat, it signifies a kick by the wind, as Hawa means wind or air and Laat means a kick. The radio jockey called out the word in a long and stretched manner to get the listener’s attention, slowly elongating the word ‘Hawaaaaaaaaa’ and then abruptly ending with a forceful ‘Laat!!!’, bringing out the potency of the wind (air) kick we were all getting. Following this, air pollution levels were detailed, and listeners encouraged to indulge in carpools and get their vehicular pollution levels checked. (read more...)

Smart Wallets and the Shifting Boundaries of Trust in Decentralized Finance

 Kate Zogaj  June 26, 2025

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Over the past decade, decentralized finance (DeFi) has emerged as a blockchain-based alternative to traditional financial systems—promising open access, automation, and the removal of institutional middlemen. But with this shift comes a profound rethinking of what trust, security, and financial autonomy actually mean. DeFi challenges the idea that banks or regulators are the default stewards of money. In their place, users are increasingly asked to trust the code that runs decentralized protocols. (read more...)

The Sugar Library

 Katie Ulrich  June 3, 2025

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This post is part of a series on the SEEKCommons project. Read the Introduction to the series to learn more. Sugar, particularly that from sugarcane, takes many different shapes and forms in the world. During my research on sugarcane in Brazil, the largest producer of the crop, I started tracking in a spreadsheet all the various forms of sugar or sugarcane I encountered in my fieldwork. I called this my sugar library. The below figures display some examples from the sugar library, grouped into thematic categories and listed without the various metadata included in the spreadsheet version. (read more...)