Platypus

The Anti-Politics of Women in Tech

 Samantha Breslin  December 17, 2015

Almost daily are news articles about women in tech. Among these on the day I wrote this post, for example, were an article in Marie Claire, the women’s magazine, called “How Much Have Things Really Changed for Women in Technology?” and another in India’s business newspaper Mint titled “Two kinds of pay gap in the IT industry: NetApp’s Mark Bregman.” Both articles touch on several issues about women in tech, and STEM fields more generally; the cornerstone in each, however, is simply the number of women in the tech world—or the lack thereof, compared with men. This is a problem that has been explored since at least the mid-1970s in computer science (e.g., Montanelli Jr. and Mamrak 1976), longer for some other STEM fields. More recently this issue was highlighted last year, particularly in the media and public attention, when large tech companies like Google, Apple, Twitter, and Facebook released “diversity data” showing the dismal number of women and minorities among their employees. The articles also point to several issues seen as contributing to the disparities, including pay and hiring gaps for women, so-called “brogrammer” culture (involving frat-house-like sociality and performances of technical heroism, generally among men), and implicit biases shaping how women (and men) are perceived and judged. As a former woman in tech—I pursued an undergraduate degree in computer science—I appreciate how this surge in public awareness and interest is helpful to many, particularly in relation to discussions about sexism and tech cultures. Through social media, blogs, and news articles people are sharing and discussing personal experiences and working to further raise awareness of, and gain support for, challenges women as a group face in tech. Tech companies and governments have also pledged a great deal of money towards “fixing” this problem. (read more...)

The Rise of Citizen Science, Part I: A Principled Approach

 Todd Hanson  December 9, 2015

This is the first in a two-part series about the rise of citizen science, from CASTAC Contributing Editor Todd Hanson. When it comes to science, Albert Einstein was an amateur. Well, at least he was during the time he made his most groundbreaking contributions to physics. From 1902 to 1908, Einstein’s day job was that of an assistant patent examiner at the Swiss Federal Office for Intellectual Property. It was during these six years as an avocational scientist that he developed his theories that transformed physics. Working as what we would today call a “citizen scientist,” the four papers he published would become a foundation of modern physics. While Einstein’s case may be unique, a lesson from his life is that ignoring the contributions of those scientists and scholars unaffiliated with university or research institutions is done at society’s risk. The bifurcation of scientists into professional and amateur is a relatively recent and arbitrary occurrence. Several notable eighteenth and nineteenth century “gentlemen scientists” had no direct affiliation to corporate or public institutions, including Robert Boyle, Henry Cavendish, and Charles Darwin, and were not paid scientists, or even science professors, for much or even all of their lives–but were nonetheless immensely important in the history of science. Historically, the divide increased as professional scientists were generally better educated in their fields and paid positions in universities and, later, corporations increased. Still, the general public interest in scientific matters was strong and although amateurs were rarely welcomed into science’s inner circles, they continued to work unpaid, and mostly unacknowledged on scientific matters. (read more...)

Looking at the pain of others (on social media)

 Charlotte Cabasse-Mazel  December 1, 2015

Reflections on the November 2015 Paris attacks from afar I can’t recall the last time I heard “La Marseillaise” as often as I have in the past few weeks. This is never a great moment for me. As for many fellow French citizens, the vindictive and blood calling lyrics of our national anthem have always triggered a feeling somewhere between discomfort and straightforward rejection. Things were not different on that Sunday morning, November 15, 2015. Like many others—Francophiles or not, Francophone or not, or French or not—I was struggling to find words to explain what happened in Paris on the night of Friday the 13th to my five and seven year old kids. I was thinking our family could later join the crowd gathering in front of the San Francisco City Hall to grieve collectively, which was important as we felt so far from friends and relatives, and powerless. But first I wanted to make sure that my kids’ first encounter with the piece would not be traumatizing as the news of events. Indeed, as people around the world in an act of support and friendship were singing this patriotic march, as they were giving life to lyrics from—what seems like—another time, French and American airstrikes on ISIS headquarters in Raqqa, Syria had already started and the word “war” was on everybody’s lips, with incredulity and sideration but also determination. Following the multiple Paris attacks in the lively and popular 10th and 11th Paris arrondissements on November 13, 2015, I want to reflect on the complexity of witnessing from a distance, and engaging with, catastrophic events, disasters or, in this case, terrorist attacks. Whether we choose to pay attention or not, looking at, and participating in, the social construction of these events, has become part of our (almost) everyday lives. For those of us with computers, smartphones and social media accounts, looking at the unfolding of catastrophic events on our screens has become a routine of our modern life. But the way in which we engage with a crisis, a disaster, or a catastrophic event in social media frames the understanding of it for some time. Building on Susan Sontag and Virginia Woolf’s asynchronous discussion, I also want to reflect on questions of attachment and othering that emerged from this first moment of public definition. Along the way, I will also discuss the concept of resilience from an STS perspective, which has been used by journalists and politicians in the public debate as a performative concept (“we will be resilient”), within hours of the attacks. (read more...)

What Can Twitter Do to/for the Field?

 Ethnography Studio  November 24, 2015

By Andrea Ballestero, Baird Campbell, and Eliot Storer* Between June 15 and 22, 2015, a group of anthropologists and graduate students convened by the Ethnography Studio linked our fieldsites via Twitter. The experiment, entitled “Ethnography Studio in the Field: #ESIFRice,” was designed to open conversations about how being in the “field” might shape the ways in which we conceptualize our problems of inquiry. How are the problems that mobilize us imagined once we are “in situ”? So we set up a structure for a parallel co-inhabitation of different sites. Each participant tweeted from her own location and with her own research interests in mind. The idea was not to establish a single multisited space or a joint research project but to keep the separation between sites alive, while linking them as an attempt to think together. If there was any purpose to the experiment, we could say that it was to craft an experimental system (Rheinberger 1997), that is, to set up a “system of manipulation designed to give unknown answers to questions the experimenters themselves are not yet able clearly to ask” (28). The experiment was related tangentially to ongoing conversations in anthropology about the uses of social media in fieldwork (Juris 2012; Horst 2015; Kraemer 2015; Sanjek and Tratner 2015), or what Kozinets has called “netnography” (2009). Yet, the purpose was not to explicitly discuss social media, but to create a space of structured play where we could see what Twitter might do to shape our analytic fields in real time. And so it was that a group of us, in different stages of our training, enmeshed in different geographic sites, and from different professional locations, got together to think about the field. The experiment generated a set of familiar and unfamiliar impressions. This post is an initial reflection on the effects of the experiment, not a report on results. The Ethnography Studio wrote up #ESIFRice! Field / Experiments http://t.co/083FJktbeV cc @aballes2 @ethosITU @BairdCampbell #fieldwork #yes — Rachel Douglas-Jones (@kaisirlin) September 22, 2015 (read more...)

Call for Contributing Editors, 2016

 Jordan Kraemer  November 24, 2015

The CASTAC Blog, a weekly, collaborative publication of the Committee for the Anthropology of Science, Technology, and Computing at the American Anthropological Association (AAA), seeks two to three new Contributing Editors to join our team in January 2016. Deadline to apply: Dec. 11, 2015 Description Contributing Editors are responsible for 4-5 posts yearly, and both contribute original pieces and solicit posts from scholars and researchers in the field. This is a great opportunity to get involved with CASTAC and the Blog, and with the anthropology of science and technology more generally. Topics of interest could include environmental anthro, energy, medical anthropology, disability, animal studies, user experience, social and mobile media, infrastructure, etc. We are open a wide range of topical interests at the intersection of anthropology and STS, especially those that complement our existing ones. CEs must commit to 4-5 post slots at the beginning of the year, and are responsible for submitting the post for review by the Editor and making any necessary revisions, in conjunction with the author (if the post is not by the CE). CEs also find appropriate images to illustrate posts, secure necessary permissions, and format it according to our style guidelines, as well as promote the weekly posts. This is a one-year renewable term, and most CEs find they really enjoy it and want to stay on. Qualifications Interest in or familiarity with blogging, CASTAC, anthropology, STS, & computing, especially from a scholarly perspective and strong written communication skills, especially writing about scholarly topics for broader audiences. Knowledge of WordPress or similar platforms is helpful. To apply Please send a CV, a brief (one paragraph) description of research/topical interests and relevant experience, and a few sentences about what kinds of posts you would bring to the Blog to the Editor, Jordan Kraemer (jkraemer @ wesleyan.edu). Deadline: Friday, Dec. 11, 2015, by midnight PST. (read more...)

CASTAC Panels at AAA 2015 in Denver

 Jordan Kraemer  November 18, 2015

We at the CASTAC Blog are very excited about many panels and events at this week’s Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, Nov. 18-22 in Denver, CO. We’ve collected talks and panels of particular interest to CASTAC Blog readers attending the meetings. Hope to see you there, and don’t forget to attend our business meeting! There will be food! Jordan Kraemer, Editor Jenny Carlson and Nick Seaver, CASTAC Co-chairs Wednesday, Nov. 18 Wednesday, 12:00 PM-1:45 PM 2-0175 TESTING AS WORLD-MAKING Richard W Rottenburg, Uli Beisel, Sandra Calkins and Stacey A Langwick Wednesday, 2:00 PM-3:45 PM 2-0290 , 2-0460 ANTICIPATING FAMILIAR/STRANGE ENVIRONMENTS: THE SOCIAL LIVES OF SCIENTIFIC PREDICTIONS – PART I | PART II Sophie Laura Haines, Sophie Laura Haines, Renzo Taddei and Susan Crate Wednesday, November 18, 2015: 4:00 PM-5:45 PM 2-0505 ANTHROPOLOGIES OF DATA Nick Seaver, Elizabeth A Rodwell, Orit Halpern (discussant), Shreeharsh Kelkar, Anna Jabloner, Alison Cool (read more...)

Forsythe Prize Author Sharon Kaufman on Ordinary Medicine

 Sharon Kaufman  November 17, 2015

I am delighted to be the recipient of the honorable mention, Diane Forsythe Prize for Ordinary Medicine: Extraordinary Treatments, Longer Lives and Where to Draw the Line (Duke University Press 2015). The book is an ethnography of the invisible social, economic, and bureaucratic forces that have made once extraordinary therapies seem ordinary and necessary. Medicine’s ability to prolong wanted life through both low-tech and high-tech interventions is a positive development in many respects. Yet the socio-medical imperative to employ death-defying techniques now exists in an ever-aging society in which private industry churns out greater numbers of interventions than ever before; in which no age or cost limits exist for insurance reimbursement of those procedures; in which many older persons, their families and their health providers must consider whether additional treatment will bring with it pain and suffering; and in which saying ‘no’ to new technologies seems somehow suspect or ethically wrong. These features of American society and health care organization have spurred our lively national conversation about whether staving off death is always the best thing to do. And, those features have created the quandary, experienced by millions, of where to draw the line between ‘enough’ and ‘too much’ treatment. (read more...)

CASTAC.org has a new look!

 Nick Seaver  November 13, 2015

You may have noticed something’s different: we’ve done some remodeling of the CASTAC website. We’ve got a brand new design and our blog has a new name: Platypus. The new design brings together our blog and homepage all under one roof and makes things a little easier to manage on the back-end. CASTAC continues to grow, taking on new members and new projects, and this new design should make it easier for all of you to follow along. Angela VandenBroek, our intrepid webmaster, took the reins on the redesign, using her considerable WordPress expertise. (She’s also working on an ethnography of Swedish web developers, so stay tuned for that!) The new design is fully responsive, so it will work on any screen size, and it’s touch-friendly, so you can browse away on your glass slab of choice. We’ve also added a few features to enhance readability: if you click on the option (read more...)