Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Science and Technology Studies Commons™

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Critical and Cultural Studies

Selected Works

Articles 1 - 9 of 9

Full-Text Articles in Science and Technology Studies

Making On The Margins: Why Do Resource-Constrained Users Practice Frugality And Openness During Grassroots Innovation?.Pdf, Prashant Rajan Dec 2018

Making On The Margins: Why Do Resource-Constrained Users Practice Frugality And Openness During Grassroots Innovation?.Pdf, Prashant Rajan

Prashant Rajan

Interventionist human–computer interaction for development (HCI4D) research universalizes diverse non-Western sites as marginalized contexts that justify researcher involvement yet function as barriers to methodology and praxis. In contrast, reflexive HCI scholarship decenters universalizing narratives of (good) design, (for) development, and (peripheral) innovation, by valorizing user practices in rural, low-income, low-text literacy settings. Reflexive HCI has demonstrated how innovators working with advanced technologies in elite non-Western spaces of privilege produced non-Western culture and innovation in ways that resist mainstream interpretations of innovation. This study extends reflexive HCI perspectives to critique HCI4D and study innovation in marginalized settings. Findings from multisited ethnographic …

Go to article

Algorithmic Legal Reasoning As Racializing Assemblage, Ezekiel J. Dixon-Román, Ama Nyame-Mensah, Allison R. Russell Dec 2017

Algorithmic Legal Reasoning As Racializing Assemblage, Ezekiel J. Dixon-Román, Ama Nyame-Mensah, Allison R. Russell

Ezekiel J Dixon-Román

This paper critically examines the use of predictive analytics in U.S. criminal justice policy and practice, with a particular focus on the ways in which these technological practices are reproducing and reinforcing structural relations of difference. Adopting a new materialist lens, which posits algorithms as more-than-human ontologies, the paper explores the process by which algorithms become racializing assemblages through their encounters with administrative data generated at various stages of criminal justice, and guided by choices made by decision makers and researchers. It addresses the following questions: In what ways do the algorithms become part of a larger sociotechnical apparatus of …

Go to article

Enhancing The Epistemological Project In The Rhetoric Of Science: Information Infrastructure As Tool For Identifying Epistemological Commitments In Scientific And Technical Communities., Nathan Johnson Nov 2017

Enhancing The Epistemological Project In The Rhetoric Of Science: Information Infrastructure As Tool For Identifying Epistemological Commitments In Scientific And Technical Communities., Nathan Johnson

Nathan R. Johnson

Enhancing the Epistemological Project in the Rhetoric of Science: Information Infrastructure as Tool for Identifying Epistemological Commitments in Scientific and Technical Communities. Article discusses how the STS concept of infrastructural provides a mesolayer approach to understand global issues in science with rhetorical methodology.

Go to article

The Computational Turn In Education Research: Critical And Creative Perspectives On The Digital Data Deluge, Elizabeth De Freitas, Ezekiel J. Dixon-Román Dec 2016

The Computational Turn In Education Research: Critical And Creative Perspectives On The Digital Data Deluge, Elizabeth De Freitas, Ezekiel J. Dixon-Román

Ezekiel J Dixon-Román

In his exceptional survey of current big data methods in the social sciences, Kitchin (2014) describes the current state of affairs as a “data deluge”. Indeed, the diluvian metaphors of flood and deluge abound in our current computational culture, as we surf the dynamic surface of a seemingly inhuman quantity of data. Kitchin (2014) emphasizes the challenges and opportunities for researchers in the social sciences as they delve into this deluge. In the digital datafication of life and learning, the impact on education can already be felt, but has yet to be adequately theorized; there is a growing need for …

Go to article

Algo-Ritmo: More-Than-Human Performative Acts And The Racializing Assemblages Of Algorithmic Architectures, Ezekiel J. Dixon-Román Dec 2015

Algo-Ritmo: More-Than-Human Performative Acts And The Racializing Assemblages Of Algorithmic Architectures, Ezekiel J. Dixon-Román

Ezekiel J Dixon-Román

What happens when more-than-human digital acts tell us something about ourselves? This article examines the ways in which the algorithms of data analytics function in relation to other ontologies and assemblages and how they are shaping and forming our lives. Beginning by critically questioning the ontology of data, data are argued to be an assemblage that is materially and discursively produced from a multiplicity of apparatuses including sociopolitical relations of power and “difference.” The concept of algo-ritmo—that is, the repetition of data with alterity—is introduced as a way of understanding how the performative acts of the “soft(ware) thinking” of algorithms …

Go to article

Alternative Ontologies Of Number: Rethinking The Quantitative In Computational Culture, Elizabeth De Freitas, Ezekiel J. Dixon-Román, Patti Lather Dec 2015

Alternative Ontologies Of Number: Rethinking The Quantitative In Computational Culture, Elizabeth De Freitas, Ezekiel J. Dixon-Román, Patti Lather

Ezekiel J Dixon-Román

Introduction to special issue.

Go to article

The Digital Dionysus: Nietzsche & The Network-Centric Condition Dec 2015

The Digital Dionysus: Nietzsche & The Network-Centric Condition

Dan Mellamphy

No abstract provided.

Go to article

Ambivalence And The Decision Tree, Kirby Farrell Aug 2012

Ambivalence And The Decision Tree, Kirby Farrell

kirby farrell

We are insolubly ambivalent creatures. Traditionally cultures have managed ambivalence by focusing on character and morality in motives. Freudian psychology recognized that cognitive conflict is insoluble and stressed equilibrium and grace in adaptation. Today technology's binary structure is complicating and sometimes superseding the traditional trope of character by organizing cognition around the trope of the decision tree.

Go to article

Mother Earth "Speaks": Change Yourself, Change The World, Use The Archetypal Energy "Harmony" As A Guide, Carroy U. Ferguson Jun 2010

Mother Earth "Speaks": Change Yourself, Change The World, Use The Archetypal Energy "Harmony" As A Guide, Carroy U. Ferguson

Carroy U "Cuf" Ferguson, Ph.D.

In relation to the Cosmos, we all, as human beings, live on this tiny planet we call Earth, a planet that supports and sustains life, as we know it. There are many different kinds of people, plants, and animals functioning in harmony with soil, air, and water--all linked to one another in a complex web of life to form one Earth community. Unfortunately, we often take this miracle and ecosystem of life for granted. When, however, we take the ecosystem of life too much for granted, Mother Earth "speaks," reflecting imbalances and dis-harmonies. When Mother Earth "speaks," her message is …

Go to article