Necrovitality and Porous Exclusions: On Dying amidst Chemical Vitalities
Note: This post contains images of skin wounds. If you are dermatophobic, read/view at your own discretion. You may instead listen to the post.| Platypus
An analysis of Mary Shelley's allocation of blame in the novel Frankenstein reframes what “franken” signals in the term “franken-food.” Rather than marking genetically modified crops as inherently monstrous, the modifier highlights the responsibility of agritech creators, the ‘Frankensteins’ who engineer and deploy the technology.| Platypus
Note: This post contains images of skin wounds. If you are dermatophobic, read/view at your own discretion. You may instead listen to the post.| Platypus
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...)| blog.castac.org
A perimeter is always porous, to certain people. Managing how it is perforated is a kind of professional work. In my fieldwork at a casino, a guard all in black sheepishly hands out blank visitor IDs that we wear only in a closed room. He collects them on our exit to the floor and accompanies us up to the lobby bar because of regulations. In the discussion, a man expresses his exasperation at an embassy’s request for an ambulance during a US National Special Security Event. I don’t unders...| blog.castac.org
A perimeter is always porous, to certain people. Managing how it is perforated is a kind of professional work. Odd behavior is socially marked out and isolated. In the US security industry, by contrast, a similar function is exported to technologies of access control and credentialing. One of the central artefacts that exercises elements of both is the lanyard. Unlike the laminated ID alone, the lanyard presents a constellation of belonging all at once and, unlike the uniform, its lightweight...| Platypus
The ethnic reaffirmation of my mother, also an anthropologist, was important in stopping the processes of forgetting and invisibility regarding my origins. I bring up those questions today in my anthropological research.| Platypus
While Apple's controversial 'Crush' advertisement is about technological progress, this article argues that it represents a form of digital colonialism, where the compression of diverse, culturally significant creative tools into a single device reflects a historical pattern of devaluing cultural heritage in the name of a standardized vision of innovation.| Platypus
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, h...| Platypus
Soils depend upon their ability to form relationships with a myriad of organisms. Like the human bodies that interact with it, soils are complex and worldly agents. Soils have different textures, grit, coarseness, porosity, specialization, various parent materials, as well as different memories...if soils are complex living organisms, then perhaps they can be considered to have a body. If soils have a body, then how does my human body collaborate with the soil’s body?| Platypus
This reflection explores the possibilities of broadening our perspective on laboratory work by incorporating an analysis of the ordinary dynamics that shape the surrounding spaces. I propose that such an examination can reveal an affective network shared between scientists and their environment, which is essential for understanding how the relationships necessary for research are produced and sustained. This is especially relevant for those of us interested in understanding the geopolitics of...| Platypus
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).| Platypus
My interest in Chiquita Canyon and the community of Val Verde grew out of my involvement with the community opposition to the landfill expansion in 2017. Now, as an anthropology student, my focus has shifted to how the sensory experience of Chiquita Canyon is interpreted, classified, regulated and elusive to regulatory agencies, community members and landfill operators and how these experiences come into conflict. Community members can use odor complaints filed through regulatory agencies to ...| Platypus
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...| Platypus
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...| Platypus
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.| Platypus
Bedtime stories are stories narrated by adults to children before they fall asleep. As an essential parenting skill, the storytelling scene is infused with love and trust. These stories make the transition from day to night easier. Rest well, tomorrow will be another day.| Platypus
I created the term “Disability Dongle” in 2019 to draw attention to the phenomenon of design and engineering students and practitioners who prototype “innovative” disability solutions. The definition satirizes an outcome in which designs or technologies “for” disabled people garner mainstream attention and accolades despite valid concerns disabled people have about them. | Platypus
