Continuing the series that began in 2025, this year we will present five more posts prepared for Platypus by researchers from the Latin American Network of Feminist Anthropology of Science and Technology (RAFeCT). You can learn more about the network in the introductory post and check out the other posts in this series here. (read more...)
One sunny afternoon in March 2024, I walked into a flea market in Chengdu, China — a labyrinth of book stalls, shadowed corridors, and a handful of solitary customers. The vendors were largely absent, or perhaps stationed on stools in darkened corners, their faces illuminated by the glow of mobile screens. Each stall overflowed with dust: old magazines, documents, books, and well-worn notebooks that formed towers of forgotten knowledge. I pulled one volume after another from these stacks, hoping to find archival materials about a forgotten episode in the history of information technology in China. For a moment, I found myself yearning for some extraordinary sensory gift that would allow me to scan and locate relevant archival materials in this sea of information with greater precision and speed. (read more...)
