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SOCL908: Anthropology of Cybercultures

Course Convenor: Lucy Suchman

Module Aims

• Achieve a broad appreciation for the forms of sociality and the specific materialities that comprise the Internet and related information and communications technologies (ICTs);
• Develop a generative critique of computer-mediated sociality, including the promise and problems of the trope of ‘cyberculture’ itself;
• Acquire a rich set of resources for analysing internet-based media cultures, drawn from anthropology, the sociology of science and technology, and cultural studies.

Course Approach

This course explores a range of contemporary scholarship oriented to the study of ‘cybercultures,’ broadly defined as forms of sociality mediated through the Internet and related infrastructures. The focus is on research inspired by ethnographic and more broadly anthropological perspectives, informed by relevant work in media and cultural studies, and in science and technology studies. Beginning with a critical consideration of the trope of ‘cybercultures’ itself, the course will be organized through a set of readings chosen to illustrate central topics for an anthropology of the cultural and material practices that comprise digital technologies. Taking a transdisciplinary approach, the course will include perspectives from social history, material culture studies, software studies, cultural critique and ethnographies of everyday practice.  We will consider the origins and distinctive characteristics of computer-based artefacts, their place in professional and popular discourses, and everyday practices of their design and use. The course should be of interest to students engaged in social and cultural studies of media, science and technology, as well as those involved in the design or management of information and communications technologies.

Topics Covered

• Anthropology as a form of generative critique
• Social histories: the origins of the ‘cyber’ and cyborg imaginaries
• Cybergeographies and their politics
• Virtual ethnography
• Cybersocialities and life on the screen
• Geeks, gamers and hackers
• The military-industrial-media-entertainment network
• Ethnographies of design, research and development
• Environmental aspects of ICT production and disposal
• Automation and work; the global assembly line

Assessment

One 5,000 word essay.

Indicative Readings

Boellstorff, Tom (2008) Coming of Age in Second Life. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
der Derian, James (2009) Virtuous War:  Mapping the Military-Industrial-Media-Entertainment Network, Second Edition. New York and London: Routledge.
Escobar, Arturo (1994) Welcome to Cyberia: Notes on the anthropology of cyberculture. Current Anthropology 35: 211-231.
Hayles, N. Katherine (1999) How we became posthuman: virtual bodies in cybernetics, literature, and informatics. Chicago, Ill.: University of Chicago Press.
Helmreich, Stefan (1998) Silicon Second Nature: Culturing artificial life in a digital world. Berkeley: University of California.
Hine, Christine (2000) Virtual Ethnography. London: Sage.
Miller, Daniel and Slater, Don (2000) The Internet: An Ethnographic Approach. Oxford and New York: Berg.
Suchman, Lucy (2007) Human-Machine Reconfigurations: Plans and Situated Actions, revised edition. New York: Cambridge.
Taylor, T.L. (2006) Play Between Worlds: Exploring online gaming culture. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

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