Universität Luzern
Anthropology of Technology
Fall 2024 / T 10:15–12:00
Instructor: Chris McGuinness / cmcgns@gmail.com
- Available to meet after class or via Zoom by appointment.
Course Website: anthropology.technology
Course Description
Considering anthropology’s long-standing interest in material culture, this seminar elucidates how anthropological methods offer unique insights to the study of technology at large. The term technology may connote machines, electronics, and cyberspace; however, it may also refer to pre-modern techniques surrounding artisanship and cultivation. Across these varied sites, technological practices involving human labor are, indeed, socially situated and embodied experiences. What can we learn, not only from adopted technologies, but also those which fail? How might technologies in circulation be used in culturally specific ways? What roles do technologies play in the formation and experience of identities? How do technologies facilitate power and resistance?
This seminar is a tripartite introduction to the anthropology of technology (AoT). Part one covers foundational themes in science and technology studies (STS), including material culture, the social construction of technology, actor network theory, and cyborg feminism. Part two deals with topics around how users interact with technological artifacts, focusing on skill, affordances, media practices, and digital methodologies. Part three addresses contemporary topics in digital anthropology and software studies, including the ethnography of software engineers, code, and algorithms. Upon course completion, students will have a broad understanding of key AoT topics and also have demonstrated original research which synthesizes AoT theory and methods.
Learning Objectives
This course is designed according to principles of student-centered learning. Students engage with course concepts through a variety of formats including weaving, photography, map-making, sound synthesis, video game analysis, and algorithm design. Aside from reading and doing, class discussion is essential to learning. Students develop their ability to organize and communicate ideas both formally and informally, individually and to a group via spoken and written word. There are no “wrong” answers in this course.
Course Materials
- All assigned materials and notes are provided via OLAT and Google Drive
- Students will independently locate academic sources a short research project..
Artificial Intelligence
- Students may use AI tools (such as large language models (LLMs), AI agents, or custom-made software) as they wish. Students do not need to disclose any use of AI.
Disability
- Students with disabilities need to see the instructor within the first two class meetings in order to receive appropriate accommodations.
Course Requirements
- Participation: Attendance is part of class participation.
- Artifact Project
- Identify a technological artifact of your choice. Describe the artifact in terms of either: the social construction of skill, technology, affordances, the social construction of technology, actor network theory, or distributed agency. Project components:
- One paragraph proposal, identifying the object, why it is interesting to you, and what theories you are considering. (submitted on OLAT)
- Annotated bibliography containing two academic sources.
- In-class presentation of 5–10 minutes in length. Students must submit their slides (either Powerpoint or Google Slides) at least one hour before class.
- Identify a technological artifact of your choice. Describe the artifact in terms of either: the social construction of skill, technology, affordances, the social construction of technology, actor network theory, or distributed agency. Project components:
Attendance / Absence
- Attendance in all sessions (in the seminar room or online) and the required reading are part of the workload.
- Please note that students are not permitted to record lectures (film or sound) during any course.
| Date | Topic and Assigned Reading | Due |
| 16.09 | Introduction to the Anthropology of Technology | |
| 23.09 | Artificial Intelligence | |
| 30.09 | Skill Ingold, Timothy. “Beyond Art and Technology: the Anthropology of Skill.” Anthropological Perspectives on Technology. 2001. 17-31. | knots |
| 07.10 | Affordance Bareither, Christoph. “Capture the Feeling: Memory Practices in between the Emotional Affordances of Heritage Sites and Digital Media.” Memory Studies 14, no. 3 (June 2021): 578–91 Costanza-Chock, Sasha. Design Justice: Community-led Practices to Build the Worlds We Need. The MIT Press, 2020. (excerpt). | photography |
| 14.10 | The Social Construction of Technology Pinch, Trevor. 2008. “Technology and Institutions: Living in a Material World.” Theory and Society. | synthesizer |
| 21.10 | Actor Network Theory Aanestad, Margunn. 2003. “The Camera as an Actor Design-in-Use of Telemedicine Infrastructure in Surgery.” Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) 12 (1): 1–20. | |
| 28.10 | Cyborg Agency Goodwin, Dawn. “Refashioning Bodies, Reshaping Agency.” Science, Technology, & Human Values 33, no. 3 (2008): 345-363.f | proposal |
| 04.11 | Emergent Strategy Selection | Life map |
| 11.11 | Digital Anthropology Pink, Sarah, Heather A. Horst, John Postill, Larissa Hjorth,Tania Lewis, and Jo Tacchi. Digital Ethnography: Principles andPractice. London: SAGE, 2016. | Digital Ethnography |
| 18.11 | Play Miller, Kiri. 2012. Chapter One – “Playing Along with Grand Theft Auto” in Playing Along: Digital Games, YouTube, and Virtual Performance. Oxford University Press (excerpt) | Game analysis |
| 25.11 | Technological Failure Steingo, Gavin. “Sound and Circulation: Immobility and Obduracy in South African Electronic Music.” Ethnomusicology Forum 24, no. 1 (February 24, 2015): 102–23. | presentations |
| 02.12 | Code Marino, Mark C. Critical Code Studies. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 2020. (excerpt) | presentations |
| 09.12 | Algorithms Seaver, Nick. 2019. “Captivating Algorithms: Recommender Systems as Traps.” Journal of Material Culture 24 (4): 421–36. | presentations |
| 16.12 | Emergent Strategy | life map |