Best Science The CASTAC Podcasts (2024)

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What Will Be Lost: A Cat, a Man with a Horse, and the Battle at Court

4h ago

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This bonus content is a reading from Platypus, the CASTAC Blog. The full post by Carolina Angel Botero can be read at https://blog.castac.org/2024/06/what-will-be-lost-a-cat-a-man-with-a-horse-and-the-battle-at-court/. About the post: This essay joins ethnographic fieldwork with a visual storyboard to explore speculative futures that arise from ong…

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Being Heard as Experimental

5d ago

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This bonus content is a reading from Platypus, the CASTAC Blog. The full post by Jonathan Givan can be read at https://blog.castac.org/2024/06/being-heard-as-experimental/. About the post: In this post, I want to explore histories of experimental music and contrast it with histories of Hip Hop to better understand who is allowed to be labeled as ex…

1
The “Doing” of Collaborative Ethnography

1d ago

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This bonus content is a reading from Platypus, the CASTAC Blog. The full post by John Neufeld can be read at https://blog.castac.org/2024/06/the-doing-of-collaborative-ethnography/. About the post: In the time Montreal Waterways spent engaging with the island’s residents and its landscape, it became evident that an island is more than a park: an is…

1
Premediations of Carcerality: Notes on Targeted Surveillance in Postcolonial India

11d ago

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This bonus content is a reading from Platypus, the CASTAC Blog. The full post by Mehak Sawhney can be read at https://blog.castac.org/2024/06/premediations-of-carcerality-notes-on-targeted-surveillance-in-postcolonial-india/. About the post: I refer to the various surveillance media practices that underpin the technological and legal procedures of …

1
On Observing: Reflections on UN Climate Policy Negotiations from Paris to the Present

18d ago

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This bonus content is a reading from Platypus, the CASTAC Blog. The full post by Katie Foster can be read at https://blog.castac.org/2024/05/on-observing-reflections-on-un-climate-policy-negotiations-from-paris-to-the-present/. About the post: What has changed from COP 21 to COP 28? How do evolving global conditions influence the process? And what …

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Cultures of Trust in Computing and Beyond

11d ago

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This bonus content is a reading from Platypus, the CASTAC Blog. The full post by Samantha Breslin can be read at https://blog.castac.org/2024/05/cultures-of-trust-in-computing-and-beyond/. About the post: What does it mean to trust? In this post I explore how there are specific ways of producing trust in computer science education. I draw on ethnog…

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Gazing into the Eyes of Elephants: Unsettling Recognition in Multispecies Relations

16d ago

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This bonus content is a reading from Platypus, the CASTAC Blog. The full post by Rebecca Winkler can be read at https://blog.castac.org/2024/05/gazing-into-the-elephants-eyes-unsettling-recognition-in-multispecies-relations/. About the post: In my fieldwork, I bring together my background in conservation biology, ethology, and ongoing doctoral rese…

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Waves of Well-being: Surfing at the Shaka Surf Club in Kodi Bengre, India

18d ago

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This bonus content is a reading from Platypus, the CASTAC Blog. The full post by Laura Werle can be read at https://blog.castac.org/2024/05/waves-of-well-being-surfing-at-the-shaka-surf-club-in-kodi-bengre-india/. About the post: The research described in this post aimed to provide insights to improve low-cost mental health support and intervention…

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“We had to rethink many, many things”: Reflexivity in Scientific Practices during the Zika Epidemic in Recife, Brazil

2M ago

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This bonus content is a reading from Platypus, the CASTAC Blog. The full post by Thais Valim can be read at https://blog.castac.org/2024/04/we-had-to-rethink-many-many-things-reflexivity-in-scientific-practices-during-the-zika-epidemic-in-recife-brazil/. About the post: This piece explores how local experiences with the Zika epidemic in Recife, Bra…

1
Tear Gas as Punishment

2M ago

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This bonus content is a reading from Platypus, the CASTAC Blog. The full post by Jack Leff can be read at https://blog.castac.org/2024/04/tear-gas-as-punishment/. About the post: By examining the interplay between state use of tear gas to punish activists and the protestors fighting against it, we catch a glimpse into the racial capitalist operatio…

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Spatial Approaches to Livestreaming: A Methodological Exploration in Digital Ethnography

2M ago

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This bonus content is a reading from Platypus, the CASTAC Blog. The full post by Soojin Kim can be read at https://blog.castac.org/2024/04/spatial-approaches-to-livestreaming-a-methodological-exploration-in-digital-ethnography/. About the post: This is my reflection on the frustrations that I encountered during the initial phases of my fieldwork wi…

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Two Insomniacs Discuss Routine and Restlessness Through Google Tracking

2M ago

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This bonus content is a reading from Platypus, the CASTAC Blog. The full post by Alexandra Dantzer can be read at https://blog.castac.org/2024/04/two-insomniacs-discuss-routine-and-restlessness-through-google-tracking/. About the post: This piece approaches questions about life, time-waste, routine, and restlessness through a different lens. Namely…

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Recipes of Resistance: Global Digital Gastrosolidarity for Palestine

2M ago

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This bonus content is a reading from Platypus, the CASTAC Blog. The full post by Ashley Thuthao Keng Dam can be read at https://blog.castac.org/2024/03/recipes-of-resistance-global-digital-gastrosolidarity-for-palestine/. About the post: In this essay, the author weaves together insights on Palestinian foodways with their past ruminations on digita…

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Bed-Time Storytelling

3M ago

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This bonus content is a reading from Platypus, the CASTAC Blog. The full post by Fei Yuan can be read at https://blog.castac.org/2024/03/bed-time-storytelling/. About the post: Memories, hallucinations, and unfulfilled dreams are narrated from the bed during the final chapters of life. I seek to highlight the experiences of those in the hospice war…

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Who Knows About Ethical Research?: Reflections on Research Ethics and Vulnerability in Abortion Research

3M ago

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This bonus content is a reading from Platypus, the CASTAC Blog. The full post by Lea Happ can be read at https://blog.castac.org/2024/03/who-knows-about-ethical-research-reflections-on-research-ethics-and-vulnerability-in-abortion-research/. About the post: As a feminist researcher, I have found it at times difficult to navigate the complex nexus o…

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Anthropology, STS, and the Politics of Imagination in Navigating Socio-Environmental Change

4M ago

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This bonus content is a reading from Platypus, the CASTAC Blog. The full post by Jacob Weger can be read at https://blog.castac.org/2024/02/anthropology-sts-and-the-politics-of-imagination-in-navigating-socio-environmental-change/. About the post: Imagination is a critical resource in the pursuit of sustainable futures, yet it is often constrained …

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Lonely Planet Looking for Connection: Citizen Science SETI Research at NASA

4M ago

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This bonus content is a reading from Platypus, the CASTAC Blog. The full post by sebastian levar spivey can be read at https://blog.castac.org/2024/02/lonely-planet-looking-for-connection-citizen-science-seti-research-at-nasa/. About the post: The stakes here are cosmic and immediate: who are humans in extraterran (not yet extraterrestrial) relatio…

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Water Scarcity, Hydropolitics, and the Importance of Materiality at the Foothills of the Rocky Mountains

5M ago

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This bonus content is a reading from Platypus, the CASTAC Blog. The full post by Kimberly Sanchez can be read at https://blog.castac.org/2024/01/water-scarcity-hydropolitics-and-the-importance-of-materiality-at-the-foothills-of-the-rocky-mountains/. About the post: As one of many in a very visible, linear collective, surface waters and irrigation i…

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Milei, Crowds, and Concrete Waves in Argentina

6M ago

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This bonus content is a reading from Platypus, the CASTAC Blog. The full post by Renzo Taddei can be read at https://blog.castac.org/2023/12/milei-crowds-and-concrete-waves-in-argentina/. About the post: Thousands of individuals were now one massive block moving up and down. The stands shook. I felt the largest reinforced concrete stand in the larg…

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Platypod, Episode Eight: CASPR 2023

6M ago

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In this special episode, we revisit the 2023 edition of CASPR: CASTAC in the Spring, an annual online event held by CASTAC. This year, guest speakers convened to discuss the topic of "digital ethnography." Transcript available at https://blog.castac.org/2023/12/platypod-episode-eight-caspr-2023/

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Algorithmic Imaginations in Agriculture: Automation?

7M ago

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This bonus content is a reading from Platypus, the CASTAC Blog. The full post by ZIYA KAYA can be read at https://blog.castac.org/2023/11/algorithmic-imaginations-in-agriculture-automation/. About the post: Agricultural digitization not only sparks the imagination of humans being replaced by automation and data but also creates participatory models…

1
High Costs, Entangled Politics: What All Comes Inside a Medication’s Packaging

7M ago

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This bonus content is a reading from Platypus, the CASTAC Blog. The full post by Lucas Nishida can be read at https://blog.castac.org/2023/11/high-costs-entangled-politics-what-all-comes-inside-a-medications-packaging/. About the post: In this process, the medication is not merely a chemical compound but is a product of and produces a network of re…

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Belly Versus Bin: How Digital Autoethnography Brought Me Back From the Brink of Disordered Eating

7M ago

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This bonus content is a reading from Platypus, the CASTAC Blog. The full post by Madhura Rao can be read at https://blog.castac.org/2023/11/belly-versus-bin-how-digital-autoethnography-brought-me-back-from-the-brink-of-disordered-eating/. About the post: I had become adept at ignoring rancid smells and increasingly comfortable with cutting off moul…

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On Algorithmic Divination

8M ago

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This bonus content is a reading from Platypus, the CASTAC Blog. The full post by Rebecca Carlson, Heikki Wilenius and Jonathan Corliss can be read at https://blog.castac.org/2023/10/on-algorithmic-divination/. About the post: Algorithms are tools of divination. Like cowry shells, scapular bones or spiders trapped under a pot, algorithms are marshal…

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Plastic Chronicles: Navigating Mumbai’s Material Mazes

8M ago

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This bonus content is a reading from Platypus, the CASTAC Blog. The full post by Adwaita Banerjee can be read at https://blog.castac.org/2023/10/plastic-chronicles-navigating-mumbais-material-mazes/. About the post: It is here, amidst a sea of discarded materials, that a relationship evolves—one between the waste pickers, the myriad forms of plasti…

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Funeral for an Embryo

8M ago

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This bonus content is a reading from Platypus, the CASTAC Blog. The full post by Manon Lefevre can be read at https://blog.castac.org/2023/10/funeral-for-an-embryo/. About the post: Not long ago, it seemed that the science lab and the Catholic cemetery were two distinct worlds. Yet, surprising discursive and material connections complicate that dom…

1
How to Imagine the Unknown: Choosing an Arm Prosthesis

8M ago

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This bonus content is a reading from Platypus, the CASTAC Blog. The full post by Gabrielle Hanley-Mott can be read at https://blog.castac.org/2023/10/how-to-imagine-the-unknown-choosing-an-arm-prosthesis/. About the post: An important cause of anxiety for her was how to choose a prosthetic and which one to choose. According to her, during one appoi…

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Staring Contest

8M ago

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This bonus content is a reading from Platypus, the CASTAC Blog. The full post by Sophie Katz can be read at https://blog.castac.org/2023/10/staring-contest/. About the post: In the ICU, I watch my patients closely with my eyes, my hands, my machines. The more carefully I monitor them, the more keenly I feel myself being watched by a gaze I ultimate…

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The Wild Pantry

9M ago

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This bonus content is a reading from Platypus, the CASTAC Blog. The full post by Muneezay Jaffery can be read at https://blog.castac.org/2023/10/the-wild-pantry/. About the post: The project we are working on is Plant Planet Plate, which brings together the work of the Green Shoots Foundation, which is led by me (a geographer), in rural development…

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"The Day I Discovered I Was Collaborating on a Eugenics Project": On Imponderables in Collaborative Research

9M ago

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This bonus content is a reading from Platypus, the CASTAC Blog. The full post by Sandra Avila and Marisol Marini can be read at https://blog.castac.org/2023/09/the-day-i-discovered-i-was-collaborating-on-a-eugenics-project-on-imponderables-in-collaborative-research/. About the post: One day Avila realized that the recommendation she had received fr…

1
Making Companion Species at a Robotics Lab

9M ago

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This bonus content is a reading from Platypus, the CASTAC Blog. The full post by Patrick Kho can be read at https://blog.castac.org/2023/09/making-companion-species-at-a-robotics-lab/. About the post: Approaching robots as companion species, we find the significance of storytelling in robot experiments. We find that science fiction fundamentally sh…

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"Blooming Biomes Mean Blooming Profits": 'Nature-based' Industrial Farming and the Politics of the Industrial Animal Microbiome

9M ago

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This bonus content is a reading from Platypus, the CASTAC Blog. The full post by Maggie Mang can be read at https://blog.castac.org/2023/09/blooming-biomes-mean-blooming-profits-nature-based-industrial-farming-and-the-politics-of-the-industrial-animal-microbiome/. About the post: This blog post details how hype, imaginations, and promises over the …

1
AI as a Feminist Issue

10M ago

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This bonus content is a reading from Platypus, the CASTAC Blog. The full post by Ana Carolina de Assis Nunes can be read at https://blog.castac.org/2023/09/ai-as-a-feminist-issue/. About the post: For this episode, we'll read a story written earlier this year. This is a story about the public funding of artificial intelligence in the US and how tha…

1
Female Truck Drivers in China Navigate Gender Norms on Douyin

10M ago

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This bonus content is a reading from Platypus, the CASTAC Blog. The full post by Anna Zhang can be read at https://blog.castac.org/2023/08/female-truck-drivers-in-china-navigate-gender-norms-on-douyin/. About the post: Over the course of a month, I examined the content of four popular female truck drivers on the platform. I explored how their effor…

1
Between Pain and Relief: Morphine's Ambiguities in India

10M ago

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This bonus content is a reading from Platypus, the CASTAC Blog. The full post by Nick Surawy Stepney and Nishanth Kunnukattil Shaji can be read at https://blog.castac.org/2023/08/between-pain-and-relief-morphines-ambiguities-in-india/. About the post: Morphine, the gold standard of medically prescribed painkillers, offers a troubling medical story,…

1
Madam Cistern

10M ago

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This bonus content is a reading from Platypus, the CASTAC Blog. The full post by Cydney Seigerman can be read at https://blog.castac.org/2023/08/madam-cistern/. About the post: It’s been a long time since someone has fetched water from me. I’m old now, dried up… it rained a lot this winter, but I am no longer able to hold on to the rain that falls.…

1
Fake, Real, Real, Fake: Salvarsan on the US Medical Market

10M ago

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This bonus content is a reading from Platypus, the CASTAC Blog. The full post by Colin Garon can be read at https://blog.castac.org/2023/08/fake-real-real-fake-salvarsan-on-the-us-medical-market/. About the post: Who could claim medical expertise? Should healers be allowed to advertise? What cures should laypeople be able to purchase for themselves…

1
Hippocrates Against Protocols: Experiments, Experience, and Evidence-Based Medicine in Brazil

11M ago

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This bonus content is a reading from Platypus, the CASTAC Blog. The full post by Rosana Castro can be read at https://blog.castac.org/2023/07/hippocrates-against-protocols-experiments-experience-and-evidence-based-medicine-in-brazil/. About the post: This episode addresses the processes in which science is being claimed, shaken, disputed, and unpre…

1
AI, Climate Adaptation, and Epistemic Injustice

11M ago

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This bonus content is a reading from Platypus, the CASTAC Blog. The full post by Angelina Chamuah, Hema Vaishnavi Ale and Vikrom Mathur can be read at https://blog.castac.org/2023/07/ai-climate-adaptation-and-epistemic-injustice/. About the post: Acknowledging the cultural, relational, and contextual dimensions of climate change is crucial in the r…

1
Tokens, Voids, and Archives: Locating Berlin's NFT Projects

11M ago

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This bonus content is a reading from Platypus, the CASTAC Blog. The full post by Spencer Kaplan can be read at https://blog.castac.org/2023/07/tokens-voids-and-archives-locating-berlins-nft-projects/. About the post: Berlin joins cities like Los Angeles, New York, Lisbon, and London as a hub of blockchain ventures. Yet Berlin’s NFT projects, Immers…

1
Ways of Knowing: Lessons on Agroecological Transitions from a Pothwari Farm

11M ago

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This bonus content is a reading from Platypus, the CASTAC Blog. The full post by Ayesha Shahid can be read at https://blog.castac.org/2023/07/ways-of-knowing-lessons-on-agroecological-transitions-from-a-pothwari-farm/. About the post: As a researcher and self-identifying ‘citizen planner,’ I was curious if new methods of agriculture could make the …

1
A Vocabulary for Junk in Four Movements

12M ago

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This bonus content is a reading from Platypus, the CASTAC Blog. The full post by Rebecca Carlson, Emil Rieger and Sarah Thanner can be read at https://blog.castac.org/2023/07/a-vocabulary-for-junk-in-four-movements/. About the post: Trash and uselessness are related but not the same. Trash is problematic and needs to leave our ideological boundarie…

1
Junk Anthropology: A Manifesto for Trashing and Untrashing

12M ago

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This bonus content is a reading from Platypus, the CASTAC Blog. The full post by Rebecca Carlson can be read at https://blog.castac.org/2023/07/junk-anthropology-a-manifesto-for-trashing-and-untrashing/. About the post: But what does something like “junk” have to do with mice ear punches, chemical transmutation and mundane laboratory failures? Garb…

1
Earth, Air, Fire, Water, and Entropy: Internet and Synthetic Biology Pioneer Randy Rettberg’s Story on How Information Was Forged

12M ago

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This bonus content is a reading from Platypus, the CASTAC Blog. The full post by Clarissa Reche and Érico Sant Anna Perrella can be read at https://blog.castac.org/2023/06/earth-air-fire-water-and-entropy-internet-and-synthetic-biology-pioneer-randy-rettbergs-story-on-how-information-was-forged/. About the post: When questioned by us about the orig…

1
Making Bioethnographic Teams Work: Disciplinary Destabilization, Generative Friction, and the Role of Mediators

12M ago

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This bonus content is a reading from Platypus, the CASTAC Blog. The full post by Zoe Boudart and Catherine Borra can be read at https://blog.castac.org/2023/06/making-bioethnographic-teams-work-disciplinary-destabilization-generative-friction-and-the-role-of-mediators/. About the post: The making of truly interdisciplinary knowledge often requires …

1
How Microbes Became Friendly: Visualizations of the Microbiome in Public Media

1y ago

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This bonus content is a reading from Platypus, the CASTAC Blog. The full post by Janelle Curry and Alexandra Widmer can be read at https://blog.castac.org/2023/06/how-microbes-became-friendly-visualizations-of-the-microbiome-in-public-media/. About the post: We take up these insights and examine one way that these ontologies of body and environment…

1
Platypod, Episode Seven: An Anthropology of Data, AI, and Much More

1y ago

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In this podcast, Ana Carolina talks to Dr. Tanja Ahlin about her work in the anthropology of health, data, and AI - as well as about the implications of new AI technologies on the work developed by anthropologists. This is a necessary conversation for all those concerned about human-machine interaction in anthropology. Transcript available at https…

1
Setting Traps: For an Insurgent and Joyful Science

1y ago

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This bonus content is a reading from Platypus, the CASTAC Blog. The full post by Clarissa Reche can be read at https://blog.castac.org/2023/05/setting-traps-for-an-insurgent-and-joyful-science/. About the post: This text is an outline of a proposal for a feminist and decolonial strategy to be and remain working and producing techno-scientific knowl…

1
"Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy?": Food, Cooking, and Eating in Video Games

1y ago

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This bonus content is a reading from Platypus, the CASTAC Blog. The full post by Ashley Thuthao Keng Dam can be read at https://blog.castac.org/2023/05/is-this-the-real-life-is-this-just-fantasy-food-cooking-and-eating-in-videogames/. About the post: In this piece the author applies their concept of Digital Food Spaces (DFS), or "online communities…

1
Violence/Freedom: Gender and the Politics of Surveillance in Public Parks

1y ago

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This bonus content is a reading from Platypus, the CASTAC Blog. The full post by Shanel Khaliq can be read at https://blog.castac.org/2023/05/violence-freedom-gender-and-the-politics-of-surveillance-in-public-parks/. About the post: Cities all over the world have witnessed a surge in the use of surveillance technologies, such as data-gathering phon…

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