Committee for the Anthropology of Science, Technology, and Computing, part of the GAD of the American Anthropological Association | castac.org |https://bsky.app/profile/castac.bsky.socialhttps://bsky.app/profile/castac.bsky.social/post/3mzlcczlpnk2dMandy Penney (@booksyarnlogic.bsky.social) reflects on the stories that have shaped her own mycelial practices, including her praxis of Communities of Practice and Care. She observes how her dad nourished the roots of her current perspectives and practices. https://blog.castac.org/2026/11/mycelial-connections-to-past-present-and-pedagogy-communities-of-practice-and-care-my-dad-and-me/05 Nov 2026 16:34 +0000at://did:plc:vjhq4kwygdo3ky65o723dni2/app.bsky.feed.post/3mzlcczlpnk2dhttps://bsky.app/profile/castac.bsky.social/post/3mzi6stc2ys2yIn research processes, unexpected moments can prove immensely insightful. Karina Aranda challenges the representation of note-taking archives as Second Brains for productivity, framing them through slow and crip time as fragile modes of existence and knowledge. https://blog.castac.org/2026/11/there-is-a-ghost-in-the-box-insightful-surprises-from-a-note-taking-archive/04 Nov 2026 10:53 +0000at://did:plc:vjhq4kwygdo3ky65o723dni2/app.bsky.feed.post/3mzi6stc2ys2yhttps://bsky.app/profile/castac.bsky.social/post/3mzex2qmixc22In this post, @genakim.bsky.social and @nathanckim.bsky.social issue a full-throated call for scholars of design and technology to reorient their work in service of the proletariat’s class struggle. https://blog.castac.org/2026/10/back-to-class-designing-for-with-and-through-the-class-struggle/03 Nov 2026 03:57 +0000at://did:plc:vjhq4kwygdo3ky65o723dni2/app.bsky.feed.post/3mzex2qmixc22https://bsky.app/profile/castac.bsky.social/post/3mz4kydcaz226Does everything belong back home? In her latest essay, Amanda Almeida Domingues challenges assumptions about archaeological repatriation, preservation, and colonial responsibility in Brazil. https://blog.castac.org/2026/10/does-everything-belong-back-home-rethinking-repatriation-in-the-brazilian-context/30 Oct 2026 19:59 +0000at://did:plc:vjhq4kwygdo3ky65o723dni2/app.bsky.feed.post/3mz4kydcaz226https://bsky.app/profile/castac.bsky.social/post/3mysirsbtzs2oHow does the proliferation of cosmetic surgery manifest in an industry that values youth and beauty? This week on Platypus, Rong Mu looks at how ageing sex workers in Singapore use cosmetic surgeries to constantly adapt their bodies to meet “market demand.” https://blog.castac.org/2026/10/unfinished-bodies-cosmetic-surgeries-among-aging-sex-workers-in-singapore/26 Oct 2026 19:53 +0000at://did:plc:vjhq4kwygdo3ky65o723dni2/app.bsky.feed.post/3mysirsbtzs2ohttps://bsky.app/profile/castac.bsky.social/post/3myiqoijgec2iWhat happens when a self-described “one-trick pony” enters a world of methodological virtuosos? David Antolínez Uribe on methodological pluralism in Latin American STS, at the 16th ESOCITE Congress. https://blog.castac.org/2026/10/a-one-trick-pony-among-poly-metis-at-the-16th-esocite-congress/22 Oct 2026 22:48 +0000at://did:plc:vjhq4kwygdo3ky65o723dni2/app.bsky.feed.post/3myiqoijgec2ihttps://bsky.app/profile/castac.bsky.social/post/3mydx23bgp22aMaria Isabel Trivilin immerses readers in southern Brazil’s industrial broiler production, where broilers can’t even fend for themselves. Who is caring for whom, and who suffers from care’s violence, in a setting where death is the inevitable outcome? https://blog.castac.org/2026/10/broilers-that-cant-even-fend-for-themselves-mother-hens-and-production-infrastructures/21 Oct 2026 00:58 +0000at://did:plc:vjhq4kwygdo3ky65o723dni2/app.bsky.feed.post/3mydx23bgp22ahttps://bsky.app/profile/castac.bsky.social/post/3mxym6nes522kWho do we listen with, and who counts as a maker of culture? Listening with Whales is a digital commons bringing scientific, ancestral, queer, trans, Black, Indigenous, and embodied ways of listening into conversation. Listen with us! https://blog.castac.org/2026/10/listening-with-whales-song-grief-and-obligation-across-ways-of-knowing/16 Oct 2026 12:45 +0000at://did:plc:vjhq4kwygdo3ky65o723dni2/app.bsky.feed.post/3mxym6nes522khttps://bsky.app/profile/castac.bsky.social/post/3mxd2v5pduk2cAI was supposed to make job hunting easier. So why did it feel like "putting out a fire with a bucket of fire"? New on Platypus, Anna Huntington reflects on nearly a year of unemployment: ghost jobs, automated resume screening, ChatGPT, and an increasingly impersonal hiring process.07 Oct 2026 23:09 +0000at://did:plc:vjhq4kwygdo3ky65o723dni2/app.bsky.feed.post/3mxd2v5pduk2chttps://bsky.app/profile/castac.bsky.social/post/3mx7fey7wvk2rA normal guy came close to the gray-market peptide danger zone, then walked away. New on Platypus, Tiffany Prendergast traces how looksmaxxing culture quietly mainstreams anti-institutional, DIY-medicine rhetoric. Read and listen: https://blog.castac.org/2026/10/softmaxxing-skepticism-how-looksmaxxing-culture-recruits-the-mainstream/06 Oct 2026 12:06 +0000at://did:plc:vjhq4kwygdo3ky65o723dni2/app.bsky.feed.post/3mx7fey7wvk2rhttps://bsky.app/profile/castac.bsky.social/post/3mwvzel4bfs2hHow do health interventions reproduce an imagined distinction between places even when everyday practices blur those boundaries? New on Platypus, Luisa Madrigal Marroquín maps this out through fieldwork on maternal health interventions in Guatemala. Read and listen: https://blog.castac.org/2026/09/imagined-geographies-from-urban-expertise-to-rural-health-intervention/02 Oct 2026 18:38 +0000at://did:plc:vjhq4kwygdo3ky65o723dni2/app.bsky.feed.post/3mwvzel4bfs2hhttps://bsky.app/profile/castac.bsky.social/post/3mwr66n55v225📢 Platypus, the CASTAC blog, is seeking a new Managing Editor! Two-year term starting Jan 2027, ~5 hrs/week, two-person teams welcome. If you work at the intersection of anthropology and STS, we want to hear from you. Apps due Nov 1: https://blog.castac.org/cfa-platypus-editor/30 Sep 2026 20:20 +0000at://did:plc:vjhq4kwygdo3ky65o723dni2/app.bsky.feed.post/3mwr66n55v225https://bsky.app/profile/castac.bsky.social/post/3mwmwpvzagk2zMale infertility is often understood through deficit, loss, and vulnerability. But what might become visible if we also attended to men's capacities, relationships, resources, and reproductive futures? New on Platypus. Read and listen: https://blog.castac.org/2026/09/beyond-deficit-toward-a-strengths-based-approach-to-male-infertility/29 Sep 2026 03:56 +0000at://did:plc:vjhq4kwygdo3ky65o723dni2/app.bsky.feed.post/3mwmwpvzagk2zhttps://bsky.app/profile/castac.bsky.social/post/3mw7m3egai227Today on Platypus, Lucy Pei examines how gig worker activists claim the global scale. Corporate elites often dominate debates on the future of work; here, labor organizing builds alternate transnational imaginaries: https://blog.castac.org/2026/09/transnational-solidarity-exploring-alternate-global-imaginaries-of-work/ #STS #Anthropology23 Sep 2026 20:41 +0000at://did:plc:vjhq4kwygdo3ky65o723dni2/app.bsky.feed.post/3mw7m3egai227https://bsky.app/profile/castac.bsky.social/post/3mw4bn6dt6k2dCatherina Wilson shows us how while WhatsApp can promote the inclusion of highly relevant analyses and insights by potential authors who feel excluded by academic (English) jargon, we need to critically reflect on its use and ethical implications. New on Platypus.22 Sep 2026 12:56 +0000at://did:plc:vjhq4kwygdo3ky65o723dni2/app.bsky.feed.post/3mw4bn6dt6k2dhttps://bsky.app/profile/castac.bsky.social/post/3mvtgnux7sk2xAmbar Reyes studies the lives and labor of delivery workers in New York City. She explores how systems designed for labor extraction are repurposed as infrastructures of care, accountability, and collective knowledge, connecting neighbourhoods and communities across national borders.19 Sep 2026 00:32 +0000at://did:plc:vjhq4kwygdo3ky65o723dni2/app.bsky.feed.post/3mvtgnux7sk2xhttps://bsky.app/profile/castac.bsky.social/post/3mvtgdwvzv22pHow does "digital immanence" reframe intimacy with the divine? This post thinks with the linguistic anthropological notion of "chronotope" as it relates to the digital and the future of our ever-mediated religious practices. New on Platypus. Read and listen: https://blog.castac.org/2026/09/time-virtuality-and-the-digital-sacred/19 Sep 2026 00:27 +0000at://did:plc:vjhq4kwygdo3ky65o723dni2/app.bsky.feed.post/3mvtgdwvzv22phttps://bsky.app/profile/castac.bsky.social/post/3mvkufdg3y227What happens when we measure aesthetic experience with an electroencephalogram? Two workshops by the Interspecifics collective show that art and science produce productive friction, not synthesis. New on Platypus.15 Sep 2026 14:44 +0000at://did:plc:vjhq4kwygdo3ky65o723dni2/app.bsky.feed.post/3mvkufdg3y227https://bsky.app/profile/castac.bsky.social/post/3mv4flku7zc2aIn Mexico, the word quelite comes from the Nahuatl kilitl. New on Platypus, Aldo Palafox argues the declining use of quelites is best understood as a conflict between political ontologies, offering a critical perspective on narratives that reintegrate them into Mexican diets as native "vegetables."09 Sep 2026 20:42 +0000at://did:plc:vjhq4kwygdo3ky65o723dni2/app.bsky.feed.post/3mv4flku7zc2ahttps://bsky.app/profile/castac.bsky.social/post/3muz476hs6k2zLucy Pei, Joy Ming, Kim Fernandes, and @rsteup.bsky.social open the series on Reclaiming the Future of Work by examining how Global South, global majority, and decolonial lenses can help us to break out of dominant points of view. New on Platypus. Read and listen: https://blog.castac.org/2026/09/reclaiming-the-future-of-work-series-introduction/08 Sep 2026 13:16 +0000at://did:plc:vjhq4kwygdo3ky65o723dni2/app.bsky.feed.post/3muz476hs6k2zhttps://bsky.app/profile/castac.bsky.social/post/3mupqpyycsk2gOn the surface, due diligence and ethnography share the same toolkit - the candid question, the pre-read, listening for what goes unsaid. This week on Platypus, Al Lim draws on his dual role as ethnographer and VC investor to trace where the two might split.04 Sep 2026 19:57 +0000at://did:plc:vjhq4kwygdo3ky65o723dni2/app.bsky.feed.post/3mupqpyycsk2ghttps://bsky.app/profile/castac.bsky.social/post/3mupqdp3p5k2wIn this post, Sridhar Raghavan traces coasts (karai) as produced by silt, sea and coastal engineering. As an agent of history, siltation in the Kaveri Delta renders the karai, where (post-)colonial engineering attempts control, as a site of dialectic of land and water.04 Sep 2026 19:50 +0000at://did:plc:vjhq4kwygdo3ky65o723dni2/app.bsky.feed.post/3mupqdp3p5k2whttps://bsky.app/profile/castac.bsky.social/post/3mujvvjfbks2uWhat happens when a horse enters a biometric archive? In a multimodal essay, A Horse in the Archive, Kayah explores the fragments, anomalies, and incompleteness produced when bodies become data. New on Platypus. Read and listen: https://blog.castac.org/2026/08/a-horse-in-the-archive-notes-on-incompleteness-in-biometric-infrastructures/02 Sep 2026 12:13 +0000at://did:plc:vjhq4kwygdo3ky65o723dni2/app.bsky.feed.post/3mujvvjfbks2uhttps://bsky.app/profile/castac.bsky.social/post/3muet4ybzpc2zWhat does it mean when a game promises to listen? In China's romance games, virtual boyfriends hang on your every word, and the game studios say they do too. New on Platypus, Cathy Naijia Liu writes on how "being heard" turns into a demand players make on the companies behind the games.31 Aug 2026 11:40 +0000at://did:plc:vjhq4kwygdo3ky65o723dni2/app.bsky.feed.post/3muet4ybzpc2zhttps://bsky.app/profile/castac.bsky.social/post/3mu5ffgjsdc2kChildren are not passive recipients of new technology. New on Platypus, Manar Naser chronicles her experience with elementary-age students, who understand AI's taboo nature, call low-effort ideas AI slop, and reject data centers in their communities. Read and listen: https://blog.castac.org/2026/08/the-kids-are-ai-right/28 Aug 2026 12:46 +0000at://did:plc:vjhq4kwygdo3ky65o723dni2/app.bsky.feed.post/3mu5ffgjsdc2khttps://bsky.app/profile/castac.bsky.social/post/3mtx3juk6os2dIn June, emerging STS scholars gathered in Seoul to workshop draft manuscripts, encountering charismatic objects and a "concrete fish tank". Lachlan Hensey reflects on the 2026 ST&HV STS School. New on Platypus. Read and listen: https://blog.castac.org/2026/08/dispatch-from-seoul-reflections-on-the-science-technology-human-values-science-and-technology-studies-school-june-2026/26 Aug 2026 00:33 +0000at://did:plc:vjhq4kwygdo3ky65o723dni2/app.bsky.feed.post/3mtx3juk6os2dhttps://bsky.app/profile/castac.bsky.social/post/3mtme7ndkr22wToday on the blog, Tanu Biswas revisits the Boaventura de Sousa Santos case through autoethnography, interrogating her own response to encountering a citation of de Sousa Santos' work. New on Platypus. Read and listen: https://blog.castac.org/2026/08/in-the-pensive-pause-of-supervision-a-footnote-on-citing-santos/21 Aug 2026 18:09 +0000at://did:plc:vjhq4kwygdo3ky65o723dni2/app.bsky.feed.post/3mtme7ndkr22whttps://bsky.app/profile/castac.bsky.social/post/3mthymmsgns2nHow can medicalization create spaces for women to freely explore their sexuality? New on Platypus, Neslihan Sen uses vaginismus as a lens in Turkey to analyze the paradoxical relationship between sexual agency and the medicalization of sexuality. Read and listen: https://blog.castac.org/2026/08/from-candle-to-dilator-treating-vaginismus-in-turkey/20 Aug 2026 00:31 +0000at://did:plc:vjhq4kwygdo3ky65o723dni2/app.bsky.feed.post/3mthymmsgns2nhttps://bsky.app/profile/castac.bsky.social/post/3mtck4cmdfc2gIn Networks of Knowledge Sharing, Jennifer Foley shares her personal journey of exploring mycelial logics and how they resonate with her experiences of resource sharing, writing, care work, and decentralized collaboration in academic spaces. Read and listen: https://blog.castac.org/2026/08/networks-of-knowledge-sharing-becoming-with-mushrooms-in-academia/17 Aug 2026 20:28 +0000at://did:plc:vjhq4kwygdo3ky65o723dni2/app.bsky.feed.post/3mtck4cmdfc2ghttps://bsky.app/profile/castac.bsky.social/post/3msxtzun7hc2nToday on Platypus, Megan MacGregor examines at-home "smart bathroom" technologies, showing how visions for continuous microbiome monitoring emerge from the human genome sequencing era and its focus on personalized medicine. Read and listen: https://blog.castac.org/2026/08/microbiome-monitoring-smart-toilets-precision-medicine-and-the-post-genomic-bowel/13 Aug 2026 14:27 +0000at://did:plc:vjhq4kwygdo3ky65o723dni2/app.bsky.feed.post/3msxtzun7hc2n