Apologies for X-posting.
Call for papers
Appropriating technologies:
The political economy and routinization of artefacts and devices
Department of Anthropology, University of Copenhagen, Denmark
24-25 September 2018
Keynote speakers:
Professor Brian Larkin (Department of Anthropology, Columbia
University)
Associate Professor Antina von Schnitzler (Public Engagement, The
New School)
Associate Professor Mikkel Bille (Department of People and
Technology, Roskilde University)
Technologies are ubiquitous in people's lives, from the credit cards used in
countless daily transactions to water infrastructures, domestic appliances and
medical technologies that enable people to live with chronic diseases. Whether
imbricated into practices of cleanliness, sustenance, health, nourishment,
livelihood, sustainability, connecting or indeed enjoyment, technologies -
understood as artefacts and devices created to enlarge people's powers and
capacities - can be both enduring and increasingly specialized or 'smart'.
Once available, new technologies can be rejected, accepted or retooled in
different ways. And, as technologies become a routine part of daily life, they
often generate particular forms of habituated practice and specific forms of
sociality.
The "Appropriating Technologies" seminar will focus on routes of routinization
in different technological fields - e.g. trading, energy, telecommunications,
food, welfare, health and medicine, water, housing or transportation. A focus
on routinization allows for explorations of the socio-historical conditions of
the mass production, circulation and distribution of particular technologies
often as part of larger assemblages, apparatuses or infrastructures; the
habituated daily micro-practices that tend to coalesce around particular
technologies; and the ways in which specific technologies come to be
appropriated and retooled - often in unimagined or unintended ways - by
persons going about their everyday affairs. The goal of our seminar is to
locate localized interactions with and appropriations of technologies by
persons and communities within broader structures, hegemonies, and
inequalities of power, production, distribution and consumption across
different scales, e.g. local market places, regional spheres of exchange,
transnational regimes of value and (mistrust), and global chains of capital
and production. Likewise, seminar participants will explore how particular
technologies come to be developed and 'rolled out' through the market or as
part of governmental programmes. How can anthropological approaches contribute
to the study of how specific technologies are developed, adapted, routinized
or appropriated?
Organized by the Technology and Political Economy (TAPE) researcher group at
the Department of Anthropology, University of Copenhagen, the "Appropriating
technologies" seminar is a part of The Research Network for the Anthropology
of Technology (http://www.antech.aau.dk/) seminar series. The seminar will
take place over 2 days in September 2018 with keynote lectures as well as
paper presentations. Participants will include anthropologists working in the
private sector, governmental agencies as well as within the academy.
We welcome papers that address:
how people's appropriations and creative uses of technologies as
they go about their everyday business are always located within broader
technical and political-economic practices and systems
the ways in which technology developers seek to engage with
potential users
unintended uses of particular technologies as these come to
circulate and become available
Presntation formats can include academic papers, project presentations, short
video presentations as well as case studies 'from the field'.
Abstract deadline: 29 June 2018, 100-200 words to be sent to Eva Iris Otto:
eio@anthro.ku.dk
Participation is free and coffee and lunch will be provided during the two-day
event. Registration is required. The seminar is funded by Independent Research
Fund Denmark.
Ayo Wahlberg
Professor MSO
Department of Anthropology
University of Copenhagen
ster Farimagsgade 5
1353 Copenhagen K
Denmark
TEL +45 35 32 44 51
ayo.wahlberg@anthro.ku.dk
@ayo_wahlberg
http://anthropology.ku.dk/ayowahlberg
Latest publications: Good Quality - the Routinization of Sperm Banking in
China,
Selective Reproduction in the 21st
Century
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