Think, Pair, Share: Our Favourite Things

Think about an object

• …you find interesting, important…
  • …you made, own, want…
  • …you can discuss publicly

On your own, describe this object

• What is it?
  • What kind of “thing” is it?
  • What are some of its physical features?
  • What does it do? Why does it matter?

Pair up…

• Introduce yourselves
• Describe your objects
• You will have to share something with the class
  • About the other person or their thing

Alex

• Ethnographic disciplines
• Collaborative learning
• Informality
• Less oriented toward material culture

• History of the course
• Cross-listed and interdisciplinary
• Project-based
• Upper-level
• Deeper work with texts

Material Culture

• Nonhuman objects with humans
• Things, artefacts, stuff, matter, space
• Physical, concrete, tangible
• Diverse approaches
• Includes technology

Doing anthropology and/or sociology with a thing

Three parts

1. Description of a Thing
2. Presentation
3. Final Paper

Actual object, thing, site, material

• Tangible, concrete, physical
• Nonhuman
• As specific as possible (not generic): specimen, item, place
• May be mundane, everyday, obvious
• Can repeat
• Can be an object you create

Start with object

• Approach will come later
• Can mix approaches and object
• Obvious pairings: elevators and stratification, exercise equipment and group membership

Part I: Description (October 8)

• Physical characteristics
• Sensory dimensions
• Genealogy
• Biography
• Lifecycle
• Not encyclopedic

Part II: “Show & Tell”

(November 5–26)

• Share with the class or with small group
• Well-informed
• Connected with the course
• From “Work in Progress” to Deep Analysis
• Giving and getting feedback

Part III: Report (December 5)

• Bring together
• Case studies
• Anthropological and/or sociological insight
• Can be ethnographic (fieldwork, interviews…)
• Can create object with others
• Can be creative or artistic
• Can be experimental

Core Texts

• All online (links to PDF files, available on-campus)
• Diverse
• Work in depth with each

Complementary Texts

• Post “One-Liner” (sentence or two) in forum
• Cited, related, citing
• Angle, perspective, approach
• Suggestions
• Reserved books

List of Core Texts 1/3

• DiSalvo: design (80), politics (33), practice (30), participants (22), small-scale (20).
• Magaudda: music (156), practice (75), practices (78), consumption (70), digital (61).
• Bates: saz (136), instruments (105), instrument (69), turkish (33), musical (39).
• Griswold: art (78), objects (67), museum (37), position (36), exhibition (30).

List of Core Texts 2/3

• Pickering: toilets (83), toilet (67), composting (31), state (31), water (29).
• Prell: connected (82), kids (62), technology (55), teri (49), jim (47).
• Van Osch: affordances (74), application (49), group (48), groups (48), generativity (39).
• Vilar Rosales: home (69), domestic (35), migration (32), contemporary (25), things (30).
• Ylimaunu: mirrors (74), street (55), towns (39), gossip (38), century (37).

List of Core Texts 3/3

• Geismar: things (74), materialisation (32), material (50), social (49), oceania (23).
• Greer: indigenous (70), heritage (66), archaeological (45), people (52), sites (37).

Meeting in library

• LB 203
• Before class: create account on RefWorks or Zotero
• Core text: DiSalvo, Carl. “Critical Making as Materializing the Politics of Design.” The Information Society 30, no. 2 (March 2014): 96–105.
• Post sentence or two about a complementary text

DiSalvo and “Makers”

• Short text
• Digital fabrication (FabLabs, Hackerspaces, Makerspaces…)
• Design, technology, production
• Prosumption
• Collaboration, participation
• Artefacts and their Politics

Complementary Texts 1/2

• Winner, Langdon “Do Artifacts Have Politics?” Daedalus Vol. 109, No. 1, Modern Technology: Problem or Opportunity? (Winter, 1980), pp. 121-136.
• Ritzer, G., and N. Jurgenson. “Production, Consumption, Prosumption: The Nature of Capitalism in the Age of the Digital ‘Prosumer.’” Journal of Consumer Culture 10, no. 1 (March 09, 2010): 13–36. doi:10.1177/1469540509354673.

Complementary Texts 2/2

• Ratto, Matt. “Critical Making: Conceptual and Material Studies in Technology and Social Life.” The Information Society 27, no. 4 (August 20, 2011): 252–60. doi:10.1080/01972243.2011.583819.
• Hielscher, Sabine, and Adrian Smith. Community-Based Digital Fabrication Workshops: A Review of the Research Literature. SPRU Working Paper Series. SPRU - Science and Technology Policy Research, University of Sussex, 2014.
• Smith, Adrian, Sabine Hielscher, Sascha Dickel, Johan Söderberg, and Ellen van Oost. Grassroots Digital Fabrication and Makerspaces: Reconfiguring, Relocating and Recalbirating Innovation? SPRU Working Paper Series. SPRU - Science and Technology Policy Research, University of Sussex, 2013.

Reminder

• DiSalvo
• Complementary Text
• Library session: LB 203
• Zotero or RefWorks account