Platypus

Unpredictable Technologies: The need for thick description in regulatory decision-making

 Jasmine McNealy  March 8, 2016

I call myself a scholar of information, communication, and technology with a view toward influencing law and policy. To that end, my motto over that last few years has been “Social Science matters!” And by that, I really mean that qualitative research, or research aimed at understanding how people and organizations actually use technology, is important for creating good law. To this end, ethnographic study, the kind that produces thick descriptions of people and culture, should be MO of any body tasked with writing regulations. Recently I was asked to participate in training a group of telecommunications regulators who want to conduct a regulatory impact assessment (RIA). A RIA is a thorough investigation of the possible impacts of a proposed or revised regulation. In the most basic sense, the investigation is used to forecast whether the new rule will achieve what it’s supposed to, and what else could happen. Countries around the world use RIAs to evaluate regulatory needs and possible interventions. US federal agencies have been required to conduct and submit RIAs since the early 1980s, and President Bill Clinton codified this requirement in 1993 with Executive Order 12866. A second executive order, 13563, requires that agencies use “the best available techniques to quantify anticipated present and future benefits and costs as accurately as possible.” (read more...)

Pragmatism and the Magic Book for Nuclear Power

 Vincent Ialenti  March 3, 2016

Today’s post by Vincent Ialenti, a doctoral candidate in anthropology at Cornell, is in partnership with the experimental publication Allegra Lab, and links reflections on the theme of #pragmatism to anthropological research on nuclear energy and environmentalism. Pragmatism, according to Merriam-Webster, refers to both “a practical approach to problems and affairs,” and an American philosophical tradition, founded by C. S. Peirce and William James, that evaluates conceptions and thought through their practical consequences in guiding action. — Editor’s note. This is a picture of a brightly colored South Korean pro-nuclear children’s book adorned with friendly animals dancing around a light bulb in front of a nuclear power plant. The title translates to The Magic Book for Nuclear Power with WINK (Women In Nuclear-Korea). I first encountered this artifact in London at a 2013 World Nuclear Association symposium. There, it was a tool nuclear energy industry insiders used to counter what they saw as anti-nuclear misinformation to which Korean children might be exposed through television, from their parents, or at school. At the time, I associated the book with rising “climate pragmatist” pro-nuclear environmentalisms like those in Robert Stone’s Pandora’s Promise documentary, those of Breakthrough Institute thinkers, those of the Hartwell Group, or—more recently—those in the Ecomodernist Manifesto. These pragmatisms were underlain by hopes for technology, innovation, human agency, open futures, incremental progress, and possibilities for achieving common ground across political divides. I continue to reflect on these pragmatisms as I develop an ethnography of Finland’s deep time auguring Olkiluoto nuclear waste repository safety case experts. (read more...)

Sinkholes without Borders: Geology, Hydrology, and Conflict Around the Dead Sea

 Simone Popperl  February 24, 2016

In a heavily air-conditioned room in the suburbs of Tel Aviv, Israeli, I spent two days drinking instant coffee and taking notes at a “transboundary” water conference on the Jordan River Watershed. Israeli, American, and Western European scholars and development consultants had come together to seek solutions for a variety of environmental crises plaguing the Jordan River and the Dead Sea, sinkholes chief among them. A single Jordanian policymaker attended, opening the event with an introductory speech, but heading immediately for the door when he finished his presentation. In the hours that followed, workshop participants argued about the trustworthiness of Palestinian water consumers (none of whom were present), the merits of international river commissions, and game theory-based water conservation strategies. One common perspective prevailed: as an American hydrologist put it, “we water people think at the level of the watershed, not the nation.” But what happens when contested national borders create barriers to the production of scientific knowledge about hydrologic and geologic phenomena? In the context of ongoing struggles for self-determination and national recognition, the Dead Sea sinkhole problem—and the different approaches to it—highlight fraught political complexities of the conflict over land in Palestine and Israel. (read more...)

Silicon Valley as Ally or Foe? Reflections on the Politics of Income Inequality

 Shreeharsh Kelkar  February 19, 2016

The meteoric rise of Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primaries—and the Occupy movement before that—have officially put income inequality on the political radar in the U.S., after years of slow wage growth and a near-catastrophic financial crash. In keeping with the times, Silicon Valley too has begun thinking about inequality. Resident philosopher Paul Graham, venture capitalist and founder of the famous YCombinator startup incubator, wrote an essay on inequality that caused a bit of a ruckus (in Silicon Valley and without). The short version: Graham is not happy with the current rhetorical war on inequality that politicians are waging. He thinks inequality is a natural product of a culture that values startups and innovation, and that a full-scale political fight against inequality is inadvisable. YCombinator recently put out a “Request for Research” to sponsor social science research on Basic Income guarantee schemes. Such a scheme—Silicon Valley’s go-to solution for the rise of inequality and artificial intelligence—would mean every citizen receives a basic income that insulates them from the rise of automation and the progress of technology. (You can apply for the job here.) In this post, I want to reflect on Silicon Valley’s political leanings, which allows me to bring in the fascinating political surveys of start-up founders that journalist Greg Ferenstein has conducted. There are some obvious (and important!) things to say about Graham’s essay and the Basic Income advertisement: that these writings take technology as an autonomous force that shapes society rather than seeing technological change as an outcome of negotiations between interest groups. They are articulations of very Silicon Valley notions of progress. What I really want to talk about, however, is good old-fashioned electoral politics. In the kinds of political alliances and interest groups that will come to define the United States over the next few decades—perhaps as inequality takes an even bigger role in political discourse—could it be possible that Silicon Valley might be an ally for progressive causes rather than a foe (as it often emerges in critical theory analyses)? (read more...)

2015 Year in Review: Deflating Footballs, Twins in Space, Women (not) in Tech, and More

 Jordan Kraemer  February 5, 2016

Last year on the CASTAC Blog began with anthropological ruminations on what the “Deflategate” football scandal has to do with questions of expertise, and closed with discussions of citizen science, earthquake warning systems, the (anti-)politics of women in tech, and deeply personal engagement with experiencing crisis or catastrophe—in this case, terror attacks in Paris—over social media. One of the great perks of editing this blog lies in reading the array of topics, perspectives, and modes of analyses from our contributors. This year, I’m taken by the variety in tone, from the (somewhat) tongue-in-cheek (the aforementioned Deflategate post; the anthropology of rigged games), to the deeply affecting (again, Charlotte Cabasse-Mazel “Looking at the Pain of Others ”), from the boundary-pushing (Abou Farman’s call to envision radical alternative futures) to the experimental (a Twitter fieldwork experiment from Rice’s Ethnography Studio). Beyond timely, weekly engagement with climate change, artificial intelligence, changing media ecologies, infrastructure, design, energy, and more, the blog is becoming a repository cataloging—and pushing forward—the driving concerns of social scientific and humanistic inquiry in these areas. In this review post, I consider four central conceptual questions animating this year’s coverage on how science, technology, computing and more are shaping (and shaped by) diverse lives, worlds, and experiences. These include: the mutual production or constitution of conceptual categories; questions of knowledge production and expertise; concerns with the future and futurity; and key political dimensions of science, technology, and computing. Although these themes unfold differently across intellectual projects and modes of inquiry, they elucidate the value of critical, reflexive, and empirical approaches to scientific and technological worlds. (read more...)

Human-Machine Interactions and the Coming Age of Autonomy

 Melissa Cefkin  January 26, 2016

“Together we embark.” “Together we adjust.” “Together we drive.” These tag lines describe the Intelligent Driving System (IDS) concept car used in Nissan’s recent demonstration of possible futures in electric and autonomous driving. Unveiled by Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn at the Tokyo Motor Show in 2015, the IDS concept car suggests rich possibilities for future driving experiences. What I’m especially curious to explore as an anthropologist who has long been engaged in ethnographic and anthropological research in the context of technology development is how the seemingly dichotomous notions of “togetherness” and “autonomy” come together in advancing self-driving cars. What visions of collectivity and sociality are at play amongst those involved in the development of self-driving cars, and how will the vehicles themselves embody these visions? My thoughts reflect my stance as a social analyst interested in socio-technical endeavors generally, and the social effects of automation specifically. It also reflects my vantage point as a collaborator in the process of autonomous vehicle (AV) development, as I will discuss. I’d like to consider two ways in which, to me, the notion of autonomy raises questions about notions of sociality. One way pertains to the vehicle itself, to visions for how the vehicle will function and look, and to the experiences it will enable. A second relates to the ways AVs are being brought into being. Here I am interested in how new social formations are emerging as people work together across previously distant and newly emerging industries, knowledge domains and practices. In what way do the activities involved in the development of autonomous vehicles suggest the rise of new global assemblages in which ideals of autonomy stand at the center of the reconfiguration of social relations? (read more...)

Hello from the CASTAC Co-Chairs!

 Nick Seaver  January 22, 2016

Last year was a busy one for CASTAC. In addition to the incredible work that our web and Platypus blog team have put into integrating and expanding our existing web presence, we’ve also doubled down on our organizational programming, working to facilitate new collaborations between junior scholars, established faculty, and specialists working in various industries of science and technology. In that follows, we’d like to relate some developments from the past year before shifting focus to the months and years ahead. We’re pleased to report an increase in submissions for the Diana Forsythe Prize, which CASTAC facilitates in conjunction with the Society for the Anthropology of Work and with the support of the General Anthropology Division and Bern Shen. Through their respective books on hacker communities and the normalization of once-extraordinary medical treatment, this year’s award winner Biella Coleman and honorable mention Sharon Kaufman continue Diana Forsythe’s pioneering work at the intersection of anthropology and STS, bringing cultural perspectives to bear on the relationship between technology and social change. Having recognized Coleman and Kaufman at this year’s annual meeting, we would like to congratulate them once again, and thank outgoing award committee chair João Biehl and continuing committee members Stefan Helmreich and Nina Brown for their extensive work on behalf of the Forsythe Prize. (read more...)

Editor’s Welcome 2016

 Jordan Kraemer  January 15, 2016

This is an exciting time for CASTAC and the CASTAC Blog. CASTAC hosted a number of well-attended events at November’s Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association in Denver, including our business meeting, while our website sports a great redesign from returning Web Producer Angela VandenBroek. To ring in the new year here at the CASTAC Blog, I’m continuing our yearly tradition of introducing the new team. When Patricia Lange, Jenny Cool, and I launched the Blog in 2012, we envisioned a collaborative space for discussing emerging work on science, technology, and computing from anthropological and ethnographic perspectives. To quote our About page, our goal was to “to build a thriving discourse among a community of scholars concerned about the implications of techno-science, technologized products, and worldviews for human beings and other forms of life.” We began with a team of two, Patricia and me (plus many generous authors) publishing weekly posts. This took enormous effort on the Editor’s part, which was not sustainable for an all-volunteer operation. So in 2014, Patricia announced our first crackerjack team of Associate Editors who brought in myriad perspectives, their own and those of guest authors. This collective model helps the blog keep pace with boundary-pushing research in anthropology, STS, informatics, and related fields, from graduate students and senior researchers alike, and has modeled how a scholarly blog can link academic conversations to broader public debates. As I begin my second year as the Blog’s Editor, I’m pleased to say we are expanding our editorial team (redubbed Contributing Editors to reflect better their role). We are losing one longtime editor, the intrepid Beth Reddy, stepping down in anticipation of her new role as CASTAC Co-Chair in 2017—thanks, Beth, and congrats! Meanwhile, seasoned editors Todd Hanson, Shreeharsh Kelkar, Ian Lowrie, Lisa Messeri, and Casey O’Donnell are all continuing, along with last year’s new recruits Elizabeth Rodwell, Adam Webb-Orenstein, Emily Wanderer, and Jamie Sherman. Glad to have you all! We’re sad to say good-bye to our Outreach Manager Michael Scroggins, however, who kept the Twitter feed and Facebook page lively this past year. Finally, we are welcoming five new Contributing Editors, many who are longtime Blog and/or CASTAC participants, and who expand the blog’s breadth with an exciting range of interests: Emily Brooks, Elizabeth Hare, Yuliya Grinberg, Sean Mallin, and Jasmine McNealy. Read on to find out more about them. (read more...)