Sharing some thinking about sociotechnical change, maintenance, and innovation that I’ve been doing with some lovely colleagues lately. @aballes2.bsky.social estsjournal.org/index.php/es...

In case you missed it!

What is the place of facts in the 21st century? How do facts shape the future of collective life? Is a new genre of facts emerging? Join us on Thursday September 4th, 2025 at 9am PT for “The Future of Facts in Latin America” publications virtual launch.

Today's post is about sharing ethnographic data in forms other than articles or books: an open online repository called the Sugar Library shares artefacts from @katieulrich.bsky.social's fieldwork on sugarcane-based bioproducts in Brazil. Read the post over here: blog.castac.org/2025/06/the-...

This is the funnest piece I've ever written. It's a choose-your-own-lab-adventure w/ multiple endings based on contamination training in our lab- based on true stories. There's also some theory about purity and fragility. ;) Thanks to editors @jrmdns.bsky.social Fernando Rubio & David Pontille

Curtailing people’s ability to read widely and carefully, to locate, assess, and compare different sources for themselves, and to write in their own voice about what they find and what it means, is arguably more effective than censorship. It is also one of the most obvious effects of generative AI.

just gonna keep posting this cuz it's ROLLING STONE covering our new song y'all come on!

This is an incredible opportunity for academic book authors who are in the stage of trying to get from "idea" to "proposal"! And the application looks very straightforward--I encourage everyone who thinks they might be eligible to check it out!

Join us for the 2025 Ethnographic Salon on the theme of INTERFERENCE. Feat. our fantastic guests Meghanne Barker, Jenny Chio, and Juno Salazar Parreñas. Hybrid roundtable on April 11, 3pm PT. In USC MCB 102 or register for Zoom link bit.ly/Salon_2025. @aballes2.bsky.social

🚨 Attention grad students! The 2025 David Hakken Graduate Student Prize is now open! Submit your unpublished paper (7,000-8,000 words) on anthropology & STS by June 1, 2025. Check the guidelines and learn more here: castac.org/castac-award... #Anthropology #CASTAC #GradLife

Reminder: If you're in/around anthropology and want a warm, global Discord server for cowriting and coworking, please reach out! Started by the incredible Dada Docot a few years ago, it's a great space where we pomodoro thru writing (and emails + course prep), but other writing activities welcome!

How do facts shape and reflect life in Latin America? This cluster, featuring interdisciplinary essays, explores the social, political, and historical dynamics of facts, challenging crisis narratives and embracing their embedded nature. 🗺Read at doi.org/10.1080/25729861.2024.2421655 @tapuya.org

Sharing the CFP for our #4S2025 open panel on “retooling.” Come think with us about the relationship between sociotechnical change and continuity. Submission deadline is Jan 31! Organized by @aballes2.bsky.social Christy Spackman and myself. docs.google.com/document/d/1...

📌New Thematic Cluster just out! "The Future of Facts in Latin America," edited by Andrea Ballestero, Kregg Hetherington and Eden Medina is up and ready to be read. 🗺 👁Read it now at tapuya.org/our-journal-2/volume-7-2024/ #FutureofFacts #LatinAmericanSTS #OpenAccess #Tapuya7

Cluster Book Review “Fact-making in Latin America: reviewing three ethnographies of truth, doubt, and expertise”🧫🔍 By Javiera Araya-Moreno, Melanie Ford (@melfordlem.bsky.social) & Katie Ulrich (@katieulrich.bsky.social) Read 🔗 doi.org/10.1080/25729861.2024.2357391 #BookReview #OpenAccess #Tapuya7

Two year humanities postdoc at Tufts on “University Ecologies”: apply.interfolio.com/160426?fbcli...

Happy publication day to this book! After working on this project for a decade plus, I’m grateful for the opportunity to share this work with the world (and with it the wisdom of working people in Trinidad and Tobago). ⛽️👑🎭🇹🇹 @UChicagoPress press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book…

Okay folks, I also compiled a list of environmental / multispecies anthropologists. #EnviroAnthro #AnthroSky #Anthropology It's VERY incomplete, so please let me know who I missed, or if you'd like to be added. [Or, of course, if you'd like to be removed from this list.] go.bsky.app/Hax2cvh

Call for Manuscripts: SubAtlantic – Latin American, Caribbean and Luso-African Ecologies #EnvHum Submissions in English, Spanish and Portuguese More info here: blog.degruyter.com/call-for-man...

LIMN issue on obsolescence just dropped: limn.press

Check out her awesome music too

Today!

Headed to #AAA2024Tampa? Join the SCA team for a joint reception on Thurs, Nov 21st at 5pm w/ our friends at Visual Anth, APLA, and American Ethnologist, The reception venue (Marcolina’s @ 1517 E 7th Av) is ~15 min away from the conference venue via Tampa's free streetcar! See you all there.

Excited that this series on substitution, co-edited by Alice Rudge, Véra Ehrenstein, and myself, is now live. “Substitution constitutes a method for tracing continuities amid seeming change, disruption amid seeming continuity, and possibility within constraint.” culanth.org/fieldsights/...

Hello anthros attending the AAAs in Tampa. @castac.bsky.social is hosting a casual social hour on Wed 11/20, 5-7p, at LightHaus Beer Garden. Come say hi and meet fellow scholars of science, technology, and computing!

Short text just published in a collection on "Substitution" edited by @katieulrich.bsky.social, Alice Rudge & Véra Ehrenstein. Sharing Fressoz's puzzlement with the "energy transition", I follow the traces of transition-as-substitutions in models & data infrastructures. culanth.org/fieldsights/...

I started STS scholars (broadly construed) starter pack! It's VERY incomplete! I wasn’t sure if there was an easier way to do this than just going through my followers & adding people. Probably missed lots of folks! Please let me know who I missed or if you'd like to be added. go.bsky.app/H4NcX46

Lots of bad going around BUT ALSO a few of us are hosting a book party at the #AAA2024Tampa at earth & bone studio. Friday from 8–late. We'll have food, drinks, music, and catharsis. Good vibes only. Come hang! 📚🥂💃🎉

Hello AAA attendees! In an hour (10:15), I’ll be presenting on work related to this article at the Multispecies Labor in Emerging Agricultural Practices panel—come join us. Room 802 B. My paper title: Generic Plants, Placeless Places, and Plantation Logics within Green Capitalism.

Join the Ethnography Studio for a casual coffee hour at the AAAs! All are welcome. Friday Nov 17 3:30-4:30; we'll be gathering at the tables/chairs outside TMCC-713 / South Cafe.

My article “The Substitute and the Excuse” is out in Cultural Anthropology! I analyze the traffic between sugarcane biological growth, biofuels industry growth, and economic growth amid the crop’s history of colonial expansion and environmental destruction. #sts journal.culanth.org/index.php/ca...

Anthros studying science and tech—come connect with us! This meeting is open to everyone, even if you’ve never even heard of CASTAC before now. It’s a great community and for students/early scholars, this meeting is a fantastic way to find potential collabs/ways to get involved.

Great paper by @katieulrich.bsky.social at #4S on two forms of abstracting Ex- extraction and excuses in Brazilian sugarcane research and ‘sustainable’ biofuels. What are the ethical possibilities of excuses? Such exciting STS!

Come say hi to us in Toronto!

The Political Ecology Society (PESO) announces the 2023 Eric Wolf Prize for the best article-length paper! To be eligible for the competition, scholars must be no more than two years past the completion of their Master’s or Ph.D. degree. Deadline is September 15, 2023

Have you seen the July 2023 of Environmental Humanities yet? It’s packed full of great scholarship and completely free to read! https://read.dukeupress.edu/environmental-humanities/issue/15/2

I’ve been working on this map showing some of the unexpected social transformations that happen when sugarcane is transformed into biofuels. http://bit.ly/clicksugarcane