Content (Syllabus outline):

Humans and technology are intricately intertwined in all areas of society today, from family, education, and healthcare to the economy and politics. Technology is often perceived as a tool that enables people to achieve specific goals—such as communication, transportation, or production. Anthropology, particularly in connection with the related field of Science and Technology Studies (STS), approaches technology more broadly—as part of social practices and cultural values. Technologies are not merely tools in human hands; they become actors that influence social practices, relationships, and even individual identities in various ways. Moreover, technologies are not neutral; they both reflect and shape social hierarchies, ideologies, and power relations. This includes how gender and racial biases can become embedded in technological systems—for example, in algorithms or AI applications that replicate or amplify existing social inequalities.

Students examine ethnographic case studies from different fields, such as health, migration and reorganization of work, and become familiar with anthropological methods of studying technology. The goal of the course is to develop a critical understanding of technology as a cultural phenomenon, the ability to analyse technological practices in a broader context, and sensitivity to the ethical and political dimensions of technological development. Suitable for anyone interested in the intersection between culture, society and technological change, the course will explore, among other topics, the following themes involving different types of technologies, from everyday objects to cutting-edge digital technologies:

• History of the anthropology of technology,
• Fundamental STS theoretical frameworks,
• Technological and data infrastructures,
• Technologies of care and health,
• Wearable technologies and surveillance,
• Algorithms, artificial intelligence and robots,
• Gender, race and power relations,
• Technologies and work.

Readings:

History of the anthropology of technology

• Bruun, M. H., & Wahlberg, A. (2022). The anthropology of technology: the formation of a field: introduction. In The Palgrave handbook of the anthropology of technology (pp. 1-33). Singapore: Springer Nature Singapore.
• Escobar, A. (1995). Anthropology and the future: New technologies and the reinvention of culture. Futures, 27(4), 409-421.
• Miller, D. (Ed.). (2020). Materiality. Duke University Press.
• Pfaffenberger, B. (1992). Social anthropology of technology. Annual review of Anthropology, 491-516.

Fundamental STS theoretical frameworks

• Haraway, D. J. (1985). A cyborg manifesto: science, technology, and socialist-feminism in the late twentieth century. Posthumanism.
• Law, J. (2008). Actor network theory and material semiotics. The new Blackwell companion to social theory, 141-158.
• Mol, A. (2002). The body multiple: Ontology in medical practice. Duke University Press.
• Suchman, L. A. (2007). Human-machine reconfigurations: Plans and situated actions. Cambridge university press.
• De Laet, M., & Mol, A. (2000). The Zimbabwe bush pump: Mechanics of a fluid technology. Social studies of science, 30(2), 225-263.

Technological and data infrastructures

• Larkin, B. (2013). The politics and poetics of infrastructure. Annual review of anthropology, 42(2013), 327-343.
• Adams, V. (2016). Metrics: What counts in global health. Duke University Press.
• Srinivasan, J. (2022). The political lives of information: Information and the production of development in India. MIT Press.

Technologies of care and health

• Ahlin, T. (2023). Calling family: Digital technologies and the making of transnational care collectives. Rutgers University Press.
• Hoeyer, K. (2023). Data paradoxes: The politics of intensified data sourcing in contemporary healthcare. MIT Press.
• Ruckenstein, M., & Schüll, N. D. (2017). The datafication of health. Annual review of anthropology, 46(1), 261-278.
• van Voorst, R. (2024). The medical tech facilitator: an emerging position in Dutch public healthcare and their tinkering practices. Medicine Anthropology Theory, 11(2), 1-23.

Wearable technologies and surveillance

• Lupton, D. (2016). The Quantified Self: a sociology of self-tracking.
• Tamminen, S., & Holmgren, E. (2016, November). The anthropology of wearables: The self, the social, and the autobiographical. In Ethnographic Praxis in Industry Conference Proceedings (Vol. 2016, No. 1, pp. 154-174).
• Zuboff, S. (2023). The age of surveillance capitalism. In Social theory re-wired (pp. 203-213). Routledge.

Algorithms, artificial intelligence and robots

• Forsythe, D. E. (1993). Engineering knowledge: The construction of knowledge in artificial intelligence. Social studies of science, 23(3), 445-477.
• Seaver, N. (2022). Computing taste: Algorithms and the makers of music recommendation. In Computing Taste. University of Chicago Press.
• Keane, W. (2025). Animals, Robots, Gods: Adventures in the Moral Imagination. Princeton University Press.
• Hasse, C. (2022). Humanism, posthumanism, and new humanism: how robots challenge the anthropological object: posthumanism. In The Palgrave handbook of the anthropology of technology (pp. 145-164). Singapore: Springer Nature Singapore.

Gender, race and power relations

• Arora, P. (2024). From pessimism to promise: Lessons from the Global South on designing inclusive tech. MIT Press.
• Benjamin, R. (2019). Race after technology: Abolitionist tools for the new Jim code. Polity Press.
• Wright, J. (2019). Robots vs migrants? Reconfiguring the future of Japanese institutional eldercare. Critical Asian Studies, 51(3), 331-354.

Technologies and work

• Del Castillo, A. P., Galanos, V., Stewart, J. K., Ekbia, H. R., Nowotny, H., Ulnicane, I., … & Mandinaud, V. (2024). Artificial intelligence, labour and society.
• Irani, L. (2019). Chasing innovation: Making entrepreneurial citizens in modern India. In Chasing Innovation. Princeton University Press.
• Ritter, C. (2023). Digital ethnography: Understanding platform labour from within.
• Gray, M. L., & Suri, S. (2019). Ghost work: How to stop Silicon Valley from building a new global underclass. Harper Business.
• Rosenblat, A. (2018). Uberland: How algorithms are rewriting the rules of work. Univ of California Press

Objectives and competences:

The main aim of the course is to introduce students to the anthropological and interdisciplinary study of technology as a cultural, social and political phenomenon. The primary aim is to develop a broad understanding of how technologies are embedded in social practices and how they are shaped by values, power relations and historical contexts, and how they themselves influence social relations, practices and identities of individuals and groups.

Students will understand:

• How anthropology and STS understand technology not just as a tool, but as something that is actively engaged in people’s relationships, practices and identities.
• How technologies affect inequalities, including in the areas of gender, race and socio-economic class.
• The importance of ethnographic methods in analysing technology in everyday life.

General competences:

• Critical and interdisciplinary thinking about the role of technology in society.
• Independent academic research and interpretation of empirical material.
• Clear and coherent academic writing and discussion.

Subject-specific competences:

• Understanding key anthropological and STS theories related to technology.
• Applying ethnographic methods to the analysis of technological practices.
• Critically evaluating the cultural, ethical, and political implications of technological development.
• Identifying how technologies reflect and shape social categories such as gender, race, and class.

Intended learning outcomes:

After this course the students will be able to:

• analyse technology as part of social practices and cultural values.
• critically compare different anthropological and STS approaches to the study of technology.
• Interpret ethnographic examples in relation to theoretical concepts.
• Present the ethical and political dimensions of technologies of development and their embeddedness in power relations.
• Independently write an analysis of a selected case of technological practice in a broader social context.

Learning and teaching methods:

Types of learning/teaching:

• Frontal teaching
• Independent students work
• e-learning

Teaching methods:

• Explanation
• Conversation/discussion/debate
• Work with texts

Assessment:

• Short written assignments 20 %
• Long written assignments 60 %
• Presentations 20 %