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Research Network for the Anthropology of Technology

AnTech

  • Research into human interaction with technology

About the Research Network

The Research Network for the Anthropology of Technology unites anthropologists who work with research in different technology fields in universities, strategic research agencies and consultancies. Anthropologists conducting research in technology are gaining increasing prominence within many different interdisciplinary research fields: from health and medical technologies to biotechnology and robotics, to climate change, energy, infrastructure, media and telecommunication, and big data. Anthropological theory and ethnographic fieldwork methods have proven to be especially useful and sought-after in understanding human-technology relations in these domains, as well as in commercial and industrial technology development.

Aim of the research network

The main aim of the research network is to:

  • Connect the institutionally scattered anthropological and ethnographic research in and on technology and enable analytical comparisons across technology fields;
  • Create an outstanding research environment for PhD students, postdocs and established researchers, strategic research organisations and the business community;
  • Reinvigorate the study of technology as well as relevant classic themes in anthropology;
  • Develop crosscutting theoretical and methodological concepts such as technological communities, routinization, optimization and anthropological approaches to datafication;
  • Enhance the researchers’ opportunities to take further leadership in international, inter- disciplinary research, pursue international funding schemes and initiate research consortiums.

The network is organised around four international research seminars and a closing conference that will give the network participants a unique opportunity to engage with epistemological, ontological, methodological and ethical questions pertaining to technology that run across the specific technology domains.

The network is funded by the Independent Research Fund Denmark | Humanities in 2018-2019.

Events

Mon 24 Aug
08:30-18:00 | University of Copenhagen
The political economy of health data: Infrastructures, flows and power
Workshop and seminar organized by Klaus Hoeyer, University of Copenhagen, and Alan Petersen, Monash University.
Thu 22 Oct
09:00-16:00 | Aarhus University, Aarhus
Network Conference 2020
Conference 22-23 October, 2020. The conference will explore how anthropology can provide accounts of people’s creative and non-predictive ways of engaging with the future through technology.

Past events

Thu 12 Sep
09:00-16:00 | ODEON, Odeons Kvarter 1, 5000 Odense C, Denmark
4th Seminar. Optimization
Conference 12-13 September, 2019. With optimization as backdrop this conference addresses one of today’s major trends; human pursuits of improving, perfecting and making efficient.
Thu 21 Mar
10:30-16:00 | IT University of Copenhagen, Rued Langgaards Vej 7, 2300 Copenhagen S
3rd Seminar. Big Data and the power of narrative
Symposium on 21-22 March 2019 on what ethnography stands to gain from embracing the data abundance and what big data analytics could learn from ethnography.
Mon 24 Sep
10:30-17:00 | University of Copenhagen, South Campus, Building 22, Erik Holms Kanal 2, 2300 Copenhagen S. Metro station: Islands Brygge.
2nd Seminar. Appropriating technologies
The goal of our seminar is to locate localized interactions with and appropriations of technologies by persons and communities within broader structures, hegemonies, and inequalities of power, production, distribution and consumption across different scales, e.g. local market places, regional spheres of exchange, transnational regimes of value and (mistrust), and global chains of capital and produ
Wed 02 May
10:30-15:00 | Aarhus University, Richard Mortensen Stuen at Stakladen, building 1422, Fredrik Nielsens Vej 2, 8000 Aarhus C.
Changing Communities and New Collectivities Shaped by Technology
In many domains of technology development, the participation of 'users', 'citizens' and 'patients' has become comme il faut and several liaison disciplines and ethics institutions have been developed to connect users with engineers, designers or healthcare staff. The aim of this seminar is to get beyond the individualism inherent in many of these approaches and explore instead the collectivities t

Contact

For more information about the network and its activities please contact the network’s convenor:

Comments on content: 
Knud Holt Nielsen

Revised 13.09.2019