Cyborg anthropology
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Cyborg anthropology is a discipline that studies the interaction between humanity and technology from an anthropological perspective. The discipline offers novel insights on new technological advances and their effect on culture and society.
History
Many academics have helped develop cyborg anthropology, and many more who haven't heard the term still are today conducting research that may be considered cyborg anthropology, particularly research regarding technologically advanced prosthetics and how they can influence an individual's life. A 2014 summary of holistic American anthropology intersections with cyborg concepts (whether explicit or not) by Joshua Wells explained how the information-rich and culture-laden ways in which humans imagine, construct, and use tools may extend the cyborg concept through the human evolutionary lineage.[6] Amber Case generally tells people that the actual number of self-described cyborg anthropologists is "about seven".[7] The Cyborg Anthropology Wiki, overseen by Case, aims to make the discipline as accessible as possible, even to people who do not have a background in anthropology.
Methodology
Cyborg anthropology uses traditional methods of anthropological research like ethnography and participant observation, accompanied by statistics, historical research, and interviews. By nature it is a multidisciplinary study; cyborg anthropology can include aspects of science and technology Studies, cybernetics, feminist theory, and more. It primarily focuses on how people use discourse about science and technology in order to make these meaningful in their lives.[8]
'Cyborg' origins and meaning
The word
Digital vs. cyborg anthropology
Digital anthropology is concerned with how digital advances are changing how people live their lives, as well as consequent changes to how anthropologists do ethnography and to a lesser extent how digital technology can be used to represent and undertake research.[11] Cyborg anthropology also looks at disciplines like genetics and nanotechnology, which are not strictly digital. Cybernetics/informatics covers the range of cyborg advances better than the label digital.
Key concepts and research
Actor–network theory
Questions of
Artificial intelligence
Researchers like Kathleen Richardson have conducted ethnographic research on the humans who build and interact with artificial intelligence.[14] Recently, Stuart Geiger, a PhD student at University of California, Berkeley suggested that robots may be capable of creating a culture of their own, which researchers could study with ethnographic methods. Anthropologists react to Geiger with skepticism because, according to Geiger, they believe that culture is specific to living creatures and ethnography limited to human subjects.[15]
Posthumanism
The most basic definition of anthropology is the study of humans.[16] However, cyborgs, by definition, describe something that is not entirely an organic human. Moreover, limiting a discipline to the study of humans may be difficult the more that technology allows humans to transcend the normal conditions of organic life. The prospect of a posthuman condition calls into question the nature and necessity of a field focused on studying humans.
Sociologist of technology Zeynep Tufekci argues that any symbolic expression of ourselves, even the most ancient cave painting, can be considered "posthuman" because it exists outside of our physical bodies. To her, this means that the human and the "posthuman" have always existed alongside one another, and anthropology has always concerned itself with the posthuman as well as the human.[17] Neil L. Whitehead and Michael Welsch point out that the concern that posthumanism will decenter the human in anthropology ignores the discipline's long history of engaging with the unhuman (like spirits and demons that humans believe in) and the culturally "subhuman" (like marginalized groups within a society).[17] Contrarily, Wells, taking a deep-time perspective, points out the ways that tool-centric and technologically communicated values and ethics typify the human condition, and that cross-cultural and ethnological trends in conceptions of lifeways, power dynamics, and definitions of humanity often incorporate information-rich technological symbology.[6]
Notable figures
- Amber Case
- Sherry Turkle
- Sharon Traweek
- Lucien Castaing-Taylor
- Allucquere Rosanne Stone
See also
- Transhumanism
- Robotics
- Posthumanization
- Digital humanities
References
- ^ ISBN 978-0-415-18378-9– via Georgetown University Online.
- .
- ^ Dumit, Joseph. Davis-Floyd, Robbie. Cyborg Anthropology. Routledge International Encyclopedia of Women, 2001
- ^ Society, National Geographic. "Amber Case, Cyborg Anthropologist Information, Facts, News, Photos -- National Geographic". National Geographic Society. Archived from the original on May 19, 2012.
- ^ ISBN 978-1494773519.
- ^ S2CID 145014898.
- ^ "Robots, Robots, Everywhere – A Field Guide to Cyborg Anthropology | The World is not a desktop". caseorganic.com. Archived from the original on March 10, 2018. Retrieved 2017-01-31.
- ^ "Cyborg Anthropology: Anthropologies of the Body | Volume 10, Number 2, May 1995" (PDF). downey.sts.vt.edu. Archived from the original on 2015-09-12. Retrieved 2017-03-09.
- ^ "Cyborgs and Space," in Astronautics (September 1960), by Manfred E. Clynes and Nathan S. Kline.
- ^ Gray, Chris Hables, ed. (1995). The Cyborg Handbook. New York: Routledge.
- ^ Thompson, Matt (2012-03-22). "Digital Anthropology Group Is Happening Now". Savage Minds. Retrieved 2017-01-31.
- Bibcode:2005reso.book.....L.
- ^ "Defining Cyborg Anthropology - Cyborg Anthropology". cyborganthropology.com. Retrieved 2017-01-31.
- ISBN 978-1138831742.
- ^ Ford, Heather (2012-01-15). "The ethnography of robots". Ethnography Matters.
- ^ "American Anthropological Association". www.americananthro.org. Retrieved 2017-01-31.
- ^ ISBN 978-1-60732-170-5.
Further reading
- Defining aging in cyborgs
- Case, Amber. "The Cell Phone and its Technosocial Sites of Engagement." Thesis for Lewis and Clark College. 2007.