Platypod, The CASTAC Podcast

Listen for free on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. Do you listen on a different app? Request syndication by emailing the CASTAC Web Producer (webmaster@castac.org).

Listen on Apple Podcasts Listen on Spotify

Full Episodes

Platypod is the official podcast of the Committee for the Anthropology of Science, Technology, and Computing. We talk about anthropology, STS, and all things tech. Tune in for conversations with researchers and experts on how technology is shaping our world.

Worrying over Speaking and the Pretentiousness of Podcasts

Rebecca Carlson October 2, 2024
Listen to this podcast episode.

Read the transcript here. This was meant to be a podcast about making podcasts. But in the end, this podcast is really just a conversation between two people who used to be close friends. It rambles and meanders. It doesn’t always stick to a coherent point. I wondered then whether it could also be academically useful. Relevant to conversations in anthropology? Or even interesting to anyone other than me? This podcast is a conversation with Thuy Nguyen, founder of the Berkeley Community Acupuncture clinic and licensed TCM practitioner who has her own podcast, You Are Medicine. We first started talking about what it’s like for her to make a podcast back in March, on a long drive together from Bakersfield, California to Window Rock, Arizona. Thuy runs acupuncture pop-up clinics and is training interns as part of her Navajo Healing Project there and she invited me to spend a weekend (read more...)

share
Cover for Ground Control: : An Argument for the End of Human Space Exploration by Savannah Mandel.

Space Anthropology with Savannah Mandel

Ana Carolina de Assis Nunes September 4, 2024
Listen to this podcast episode.

View/Download the transcription for this episode. For this episode of Platypod, I interviewed space anthropologist Savannah Mandel about her new book Ground Control: An Argument for the End of Human Space Exploration (Chicago Review Press, 2024) where she writes about commercial space exploration in the US based on her ethnographic fieldwork with SpacePort America in New Mexico, and with space policymakers in Washington DC.  (read more...)

share

The Many Modes of Ethnography

Rebecca Carlson July 3, 2024
Listen to this podcast episode.

Download the transcript for this episode. This podcast episode talks to three anthropologists, Rachel Douglas-Jones, Rine Vieth, and Kara White, scholars working in three different parts of the world who use multimodal methods in their teaching and research. It is not a history of multimodal methods, or even a really detailed review of them; instead, it is a consideration of some of the issues they raise or resolve for ethnography. Whatever Tim Ingold has or hasn’t said about ethnography, he inadvertently offered what I think is the most compelling definition when he wrote: It is where we, “join with things in their passage through time, going along together with them, working with them, and suffering with them” (24, 2020). I’m tweaking the first part of this sentence to make it work here, as he’s actually describing the Latin prefix co- and his idea of “the gathering,” but it works for (read more...)

share
Decorated image used as an invitation for CASPR 2023

Platypod, Episode Eight: CASPR 2023

Ana Carolina de Assis Nunes December 12, 2023
Listen to this podcast episode.

Download the full transcript of this episode. The 2023 edition of CASPR: CASTAC in the Spring discussed digital ethnography and its multiple facets. The event was moderated by Dr. Baird Campbell, who, along with guest speakers Dr. Ilana Gershon, Dr. Nicole Taylor, and Dr. Patricia G. Lange, shared their experiences and valuable insights based on their many years of interactions with digital ethnography—much before the recent spike in interest in this method due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Some critical insights from the event: On the online-offline divide, guest-speakers pointed out that this division will not matter in the future as interlocutors are increasingly interconnected. Speakers were skeptical about how much this topic still matters now, coming to the conclusion that this separation is largely artificial. The speakers mentioned how digital technologies, social media platforms, and other technological products would indirectly be part of future ethnographies, even if the researcher had (read more...)

share

Platypod, Episode Seven: An Anthropology of Data, AI, and Much More

Ana Carolina de Assis Nunes June 13, 2023
Listen to this podcast episode.

Download the transcript of this interview. For this episode of Platypod, I talked to Dr. Tanja Ahlin about her research, work, and academic trajectory. She’s currently a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands, and her work focuses on intersections of medical anthropology, social robots, and artificial intelligence. I told her of my perspective as a grad student, making plans and deciding what routes to take to be successful in my field. Dr. Ahlin was very generous in sharing her stories and experiences, which I’m sure are helpful to other grad students as well. Enjoy this episode, and contact us if you have questions, thoughts, or suggestions for other episodes.  (read more...)

share

Platypod, Episode Six: An Anthropology of Algorithmic Recommendation Systems

Ana Carolina de Assis Nunes April 6, 2023
Também disponível em português.
Listen to this podcast episode.

Download the transcript of this interview. On the morning of Friday, March 10, 2023 Nick Seaver and I met over Zoom to talk about his new book Computing Taste: Algorithms and Makers of Music Recommendation, which was published in 2022 by the University of Chicago Press. In that meeting, we recorded an episode for the Playpod podcast, which is available at the link above. (read more...)

share
Orange Platypus with black headphones

Platypod, Episode Five: CASPR – CASTAC in the Spring 2022

Angela VandenBroek, Dawn Nafus, Melissa Cefkin November 3, 2022
Listen to this podcast episode.

This episode presents a recording of CASPR 2022, or the CASTAC in the Spring 2022 event, which took place on May 10, 2022. CASPR 2022 was organized to encourage dialogue on breaking down binaries that have separated academe and industry. Angela VandenBroek (TXST), Melissa Cefkin (Waymo), and Dawn Nafus (Intel) discuss their work in leading socially-informed research in industry contexts. (read more...)

share
Orange Platypus with black headphones

Platypod, Episode Four: Connections and Disconnections on Social Media

Baird Campbell, Ilana Gershon October 27, 2022
Listen to this podcast episode.

In this episode, Platypod presents a conversation between Baird Campbell (Rice University) and Ilana Gershon (Indiana University Bloomington). They discuss the politics of connection and disconnection via social media in Chile and the US. (read more...)

share
Orange Platypus with black headphones

Platypod, Episode Three: Disability, Toxicity, and the Environment

Elizabeth Roberts, Sophia Jaworski September 27, 2022
Listen to this podcast episode.

In this episode, Platypod presents a conversation between Elizabeth Roberts (the University of Michigan) and Sophia Jaworski (the University of Toronto). They discuss the complexities of corporeal life in toxic environments. This episode was created with the participation of Elizabeth Roberts (the University of Michigan, speaker), Sophia Jaworski (the University of Toronto, speaker), Svetlana Borodina (Columbia University, host, producer), Gebby Keny (Rice University, host, sound editor), and Angela VandenBroek (Texas State University, CASTAC web producer). The transcript of their conversation is available below. We thank Sophia Jaworski for her work on editing the transcript for comprehension. (read more...)

share
Orange Platypus with black headphones

Platypod, Episode Two: Ableism in Anthropology and Higher Ed

Laura Heath-Stout, Rebecca-Eli Long August 9, 2022
Listen to this podcast episode.

In this episode, Platypod presents a conversation between Laura Heath-Stout (Brandeis University) and Rebecca-Eli Long (Purdue University). They discuss their research and experiences of ableism in academia, anthropology, and higher ed, in general. This episode was created with the participation of Laura Heath-Stout (Brandeis University, speaker), Rebecca-Eli Long (Purdue University, speaker), Kim Fernandes (University of Pennsylvania, host), Svetlana Borodina (Columbia University, host), Gebby Keny (Rice University, sound editor), and Angela VandenBroek (Texas State University, CASTAC web producer). The transcript of their conversation (edited for comprehension) is available below. (read more...)

share
Orange Platypus with black headphones

Platypod, Episode One: Technologies and Politics of Accessibility

Zihao Lin, Cassandra Hartblay July 26, 2022
阅读中文版
Данная статья доступна на русском.
Listen to this podcast episode.

In its opening episode, Platypod presents a conversation between Cassandra Hartblay (University of Toronto) and Zihao Lin (University of Chicago). They discuss their research on accessibility cultures, politics, and technologies. This episode was created with the participation of Cassandra Hartblay (the University of Toronto, speaker) and Zihao Lin (the University of Chicago, speaker), Kim Fernandes (University of Pennsylvania, host), Svetlana Borodina (Columbia University, host), Gebby Keny (Rice University, sound editor), and Angela VandenBroek (Texas State University, CASTAC web producer). The transcript of their conversation is accessible below. (read more...)

share

Platypus on Platypod

The bonus episodes below are the most recent readings from Platypus, The CASTAC Blog. Look for more readings in the Platypus archives or find them on your favorite podcast app.

The image shows a hand clearing a bunch of green leaves. In the middle of the photograph are unripe green cantaloupes.

Collaborating Bodies: Community Gardens and Food Forests in Central Texas

Nadia Luis September 11, 2025
Listen to a reading of this post.

Almost every aspect of life on earth interacts with soil. Soils are old. Soils take time to develop from their parent material. Soils embody life itself. Yet, the concept of soil varies depending on the epistemic culture applied to define what soil is. Often soils exist in states of naturalness or unnaturalness. For example, Minami (2009) describes the Chinese compound character for agricultural soil 土壤 (tǔ rǎng), the first character (tǔ) represents soil in its natural state, and the second character (rǎng) represents soil once it has been broken up for agricultural purposes. Here, an interesting dichotomy presents itself: soil as it is and soil as it is once altered by human intervention. This dichotomous classificatory system describes changes that result from soil processes interacting; however, curiously, soil in only one category is the product of perceived human interaction. (read more...)

share
It is an image of a text, part of my doctoral proposal, with a rotoscoped drawing of a walking person on top.

Feeling Adrift in the Ethnography of a Laboratory

Mauricio Baez September 9, 2025
Listen to a reading of this post.

This semester, I officially began my fieldwork for my doctoral dissertation in the city of Bogotá. As part of an ethnography, I will be wandering through different neuroscience laboratories in Colombia, observing some of their studies as well as certain outreach activities they prepare. My questions aim to understand the academic and non-academic ties that enable the consolidation of research networks, and how these networks are also articulated with other spaces. (read more...)

share
Screenshot from a video of the Supercoach App

Can We Make Space for Technique?: Politics and Play in Digital Coaching

Martin Jesper Larsson September 4, 2025
Este contenido también está disponible en español
Listen to a reading of this post.

In Sweden, youth soccer is expected to be fun –but in a specific way. Rooted in the 19th-century idealization of amateurism over professionalism, fun in Swedish youth soccer has come to emphasize spontaneity, inclusion, and teamwork (Bachner, 2023). Over time, these amateur ideals have been woven into a broader political agenda in which youth sport is understood as a vehicle for public health, social integration and the cultivation of social capital (Doherty et al., 2013; Ekholm, 2018). (read more...)

share
Chiquita Canyon Landfill in 2017

Odors, Leakage and Containment: The Story of a Southern California Landfill

Emma Jahoda-Brown September 2, 2025
Listen to a reading of this post.

In Val Verde, California, an unincorporated community just a few miles north of popular amusement destination, Six Flags Magic Mountain, it is possible to glimpse the top of the world’s tallest and fastest roller coaster – The Superman-  from nearly anywhere. Another, less popular, but arguably as important site lies even closer. Chiquita Canyon Landfill, claiming the designation of second oldest landfill in Los Angeles county, has its official property boundary less than a mile from the western edge of Val Verde. When I lived there in 2013, Six Flags Magic Mountain and Chiquita Canyon landfill were landmarks, one towering in the distance and one burrowing beneath, both at the edge of perception. (read more...)

share
An image of the RAFeCT logo, containing text in purple and a design next to it. The text displays the acronym and its full form in Portuguese.

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

Clarissa Reche August 28, 2025
Este contenido también está disponible en español
Este conteúdo também está disponível em português.
Listen to a reading of this post.

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...)

share
Eight adults stand in a circle on a field with brown soil visible underfoot.

The Politics of Translation Across Policy, Grant Proposal, and Agricultural Landscapes

Cydney Seigerman August 26, 2025
Listen to a reading of this post.

On Monday, April 14th, my stomach sank as I read an e-mail from the principal investigators of a large-scale, multi-institutional project funded by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) that supported half of my livelihood as a postdoctoral research associate. Following that day’s press release from the USDA—“USDA Cancels Biden Era Climate Slush Fund, Reprioritizes Existing Funding to Farmers”—the email transformed the cloud of uncertainty that loomed over all federally funded scientific inquiry into concrete dejection. (read more...)

share
सिंधु- गंगा के मैदान का एक चित्र जिसमें धुंध को दर्शाती एक सफ़ेद रेखा दिखाई दे रही है जो पाकिस्तान के इस्लामाबाद से लेकर भारत में दिल्ली, आगरा, मेरठ और रोहतक होते हुए बांग्लादेश के ढाका तक फैली हुई है ।

Hawa-laat: Polluted Air in Delhi, India

Vasundhara Bhojvaid August 7, 2025
यह पोस्ट हिंदी में भी उपलब्ध है ।
Listen to a reading of this post.

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...)

share
A delivery person dressed in a red uniform (of the company Zomato) can be seen riding on his bike past a prominent public spot (the Malkacheruvu) in the city, managed by the municipal corporation body GHMC, on a cloudy day. Cars are parked outside, and a few people can be seen in the background.

Patch-“working” the Field: Methodological Reorientations During a Global Pandemic

Anushree Gupta July 29, 2025
Listen to a reading of this post.

I began my doctoral journey right before the pandemic set in. My project was going to critically examine the notion of “technology for social good” within the hyper-charged tech startup and innovation ecosystem in a rapidly digitizing India. I wanted to examine how top-down imaginaries rooted in technocratic governance regimes were shaping emerging communities of practice and cultures of technology-based entrepreneurship. Deeply inspired by Ho’s (2009), Irani’s (2019), and Gupta’s (2024) ethnographies, I hoped to develop my research similarly through an in-depth investigation of techno-entrepreneurial cultures from within and examine their capture of the public imagination for charting pathways to economic growth and social mobility. The idea was to try and uncover the finer threads that were weaving the tapestry of neoliberal development in what would later be deemed as “pre-pandemic” India. Enter the pandemic and the paralyzing lockdown in March 2020 that brought “normal” life to a screeching halt. A sudden and totalizing isolation was mandated by the social distancing rules meant to keep the virus out. However, it didn’t keep the feeling of disaster at bay. The scenes that unfolded during the lockdown–on national television and social media screens, both closer to home as well as globally–demanded loudly and aggressively a reconsideration of everything important and urgent, and hence, worth studying. (read more...)

share
A bus drives into a dusty landscape with a blue sky

Technics in the Dust

Spencer Kaplan July 22, 2025
Listen to a reading of this post.

One early morning in August 2024, I boarded a coach bus in downtown San Francisco. We drove over the Sierra Nevada Mountains, past Reno, and through the Pyramid Lake Paiute Reservation. After six hours, the bus entered the Black Rock Desert and arrived at Burning Man: an annual, week-long event where 63,000 “Burners” create a temporary city dedicated to art, self-expression, decommodification, and self-reliance. (read more...)

share
A smart watch worn on an older woman's wrist.

The Sovereignty of Wearables: Indigenous Health and Digital Colonialism in Taiwan

Aaron Su July 15, 2025
Listen to a reading of this post.

Now that I’ve mentioned it to her, Ms. Pacidal—an Amis Indigenous woman in her 80s—starts to fiddle with the watch on her left hand. It has a black, square, and boxy plastic face, on which shines a dimly lit screen that shows the date and time, location tracking services, and a daily step count. “It’s light,” she says. “In fact, almost forgettable!” It’s secured on Ms. Pacidal’s arm with a rubber strap, and she tells me that she has not taken it off for months. “It goes with me into the shower, when I cook, when I clean. And the battery lasts for almost a week. So it’s almost invisible,” she says. “So invisible,” a nearby care worker interrupts and laughs, “that it’s measuring her vital signs and she doesn’t even know!” (read more...)

share
Person in turquoise sweater and knit hat sitting on a chair using a mobile phone, with traditional Chinese wooden architecture and signage in the background.

“I Just Want to Be Happy!”: Singing, Scrolling, and Healing in a Chinese Senior’s Digital Life

Hui Wen July 8, 2025
请阅读本文简体中文版
Listen to a reading of this post.

Once considered a funny truth, Douglas Adams’s “three rules of technology” now feels increasingly outdated—especially his claim that any technology introduced after age 35 is against the natural order of things and therefore threatening. Today, millions of older adults who had little prior exposure to digital tools are not only using technology, but actively embracing the new worlds it opens up. (read more...)

share
City scape with unicorn

“Excavating” Cosmotechnical Diversity in Colombia and Sweden

Eric Orlowski, Juan Forero-Duarte July 3, 2025
Listen to a reading of this post.

Silicon Valley is many things, but perhaps most importantly it serves as a symbol; a metaphor. In public discourse, Silicon Valley frequently represents a particular vision of technology and the future, and much of its lasting influence emerges not from its inventions alone but from its symbolic significance, shaping aspirations and serving as a model to be replicated elsewhere (McElroy 2024; Chan 2025). Indeed, today there exists not merely one Silicon Valley but many—the Silicon Valley of Europe (Stockholm, London, Dublin), the Silicon Valleys of India and China (Bangalore, Shenzhen), and the Silicon Valley of Africa (Lagos), among numerous others globally. While this vision of technological innovation is often celebrated as a promising pathway toward future prosperity, it simultaneously raises anxieties about what critics describe as a form of “Silicon Valley Imperialism” (McElroy 2024). In this critical perspective, the ideals, practices, and economic models originating in Silicon Valley are exported worldwide, presented as the singular viable pathway to technological advancement. Hong Kong-based philosopher Yuk Hui notably refers to it as a “unilateral” future (Hui 2017:52). (read more...)

share
A psychedelic landscape featuring vividly colored skies, purple mountains, silhouetted trees, and floating whale-like figures.

Simulating Systemic Violence: Game Design as Speculative Ethnography in “Seven Days of Destruction”

Mayshu (Meixu) Zhan July 1, 2025
Listen to a reading of this post.

Gun violence in the United States is a statistical crisis, a political flashpoint, and an everyday reality for millions. But what if we could play through its structural logics? My game Seven Days of Destruction invites players into a speculative environment where systemic poverty, miseducation, drug abuse, and inequality are not only themes but mechanics. By designing this game, I sought to intervene in the ways we narrate and engage with structural violence: not through direct representation or journalistic realism, but via allegory, abstraction, and the aesthetics of defamiliarization. (read more...)

share

Smart Wallets and the Shifting Boundaries of Trust in Decentralized Finance

Kate Zogaj June 26, 2025
Listen to a reading of this post.

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...)

share
The image shows a museum display featuring an early model of a diving suit, diving shoes, weights, and a helmet. Additionally, an old book is exhibited, displaying sketches of diving suits and helmets.

Submarine Cyborgs: At Sea with Haraway and Jue

Elexis Williams Gray June 24, 2025
Listen to a reading of this post.

It is a Tuesday in May in upstate New York, and the world is greening all around me. A little rain falls from a clouded-over sky scattering bright neon gray light wherever it catches. Don’t be fooled by the stacks of books and papers beside my desk, or the false chiming of distant bells at the window. I am hunting a creature of the sea – a hybrid species, intimate with the queer spatialities of submarine worlds, the manfish. (read more...)

share