Pub Date : 2022-09-07DOI: 10.1080/25729861.2022.2080335
J. López
{"title":"Pensar sembrando / sembrar pensando con el Abuelo Zenón","authors":"J. López","doi":"10.1080/25729861.2022.2080335","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/25729861.2022.2080335","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":36898,"journal":{"name":"Tapuya: Latin American Science, Technology and Society","volume":"8 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-09-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82070010","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-08-30DOI: 10.1080/25729861.2022.2090486
O. Bernasconi, Jefferson Jaramillo, Marisol López
ABSTRACT The “metric turn” is shaping human rights knowledge, governance and politics globally. This article seeks to contribute to the emergent analysis of numbers in human rights matters from a Latin American perspective. We explore a phenomenon that is hard to count; the number of victims of forced disappearance –persons who are kidnapped and murdered, and whose bodies are disposed of. And we study it in three contexts of political institutional violence on the continent – the dictatorship in Chile (1973–1990), the armed conflict of Colombia (1958–), and México's dirty wars (1964–1998) and narco-conflicts (2002–). Focusing on numbers' liveliness, we draw from interviews, institutional documents and archive analysis to examine the trajectory of the number of forced disappeared persons and how it mobilizes and is shaped by human rights concerns. Transitivity is crucial in the trajectory and liveliness of numbers. Challenging the view that numbers only prove effective when decontextualized, we show that transitivity is a mathematical, cognitive, and political achievement, and identify the effects of transitive but also of referential and provisional numbers in the human rights field. Particularly, how they contribute to the acknowledgement and handling of human rights violations, pushing for the production of accountability regimes.
{"title":"The number of disappearance: trajectories in the tally of victims of forced disappearance in Latin America","authors":"O. Bernasconi, Jefferson Jaramillo, Marisol López","doi":"10.1080/25729861.2022.2090486","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/25729861.2022.2090486","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The “metric turn” is shaping human rights knowledge, governance and politics globally. This article seeks to contribute to the emergent analysis of numbers in human rights matters from a Latin American perspective. We explore a phenomenon that is hard to count; the number of victims of forced disappearance –persons who are kidnapped and murdered, and whose bodies are disposed of. And we study it in three contexts of political institutional violence on the continent – the dictatorship in Chile (1973–1990), the armed conflict of Colombia (1958–), and México's dirty wars (1964–1998) and narco-conflicts (2002–). Focusing on numbers' liveliness, we draw from interviews, institutional documents and archive analysis to examine the trajectory of the number of forced disappeared persons and how it mobilizes and is shaped by human rights concerns. Transitivity is crucial in the trajectory and liveliness of numbers. Challenging the view that numbers only prove effective when decontextualized, we show that transitivity is a mathematical, cognitive, and political achievement, and identify the effects of transitive but also of referential and provisional numbers in the human rights field. Particularly, how they contribute to the acknowledgement and handling of human rights violations, pushing for the production of accountability regimes.","PeriodicalId":36898,"journal":{"name":"Tapuya: Latin American Science, Technology and Society","volume":"160 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-08-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83847656","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-08-25DOI: 10.1080/25729861.2022.2086446
Abril Saldaña-Tejeda, X. Pérez‐Campos, E.Harish Reddy
ABSTRACT Understanding public activities and developing thoughtful public health strategies are key goals in efforts to manage the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper explores how seismic noise data can be used as part of such efforts. We show that the fluctuation of seismic noise levels has the capacity to demonstrate aggregate human movement. When considered in relation to major public health efforts, these data can help us evaluate the effectiveness of public health communication strategies that seek to limit social activity. We show evidence that, broadly speaking, Mexican national efforts to encourage “lockdown” worked for a few months in areas around seismic stations, and broke down as time went on. Further, we suggest that changes in the levels of human activity detected in seismic noise can be read alongside social data that provide some clues as to why people respond or not to health recommendations. Our findings have implications for both efforts to understand the nature and effects of public trust in the Mexican state and also the practicalities of using seismic noise data in this manner. An interdisciplinary analysis allows us to address these data and their possible use in a way that takes seriously the opportunities and challenges that emerge in the context of contemporary biopolitics and emerging configurations of surveillance technologies. Analyzing anthropogenic seismic activity opens up new opportunities for ethical data collection and use.
{"title":"Seismic noise to public health signal: investigating the effects of pandemic guidance in Mexico","authors":"Abril Saldaña-Tejeda, X. Pérez‐Campos, E.Harish Reddy","doi":"10.1080/25729861.2022.2086446","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/25729861.2022.2086446","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Understanding public activities and developing thoughtful public health strategies are key goals in efforts to manage the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper explores how seismic noise data can be used as part of such efforts. We show that the fluctuation of seismic noise levels has the capacity to demonstrate aggregate human movement. When considered in relation to major public health efforts, these data can help us evaluate the effectiveness of public health communication strategies that seek to limit social activity. We show evidence that, broadly speaking, Mexican national efforts to encourage “lockdown” worked for a few months in areas around seismic stations, and broke down as time went on. Further, we suggest that changes in the levels of human activity detected in seismic noise can be read alongside social data that provide some clues as to why people respond or not to health recommendations. Our findings have implications for both efforts to understand the nature and effects of public trust in the Mexican state and also the practicalities of using seismic noise data in this manner. An interdisciplinary analysis allows us to address these data and their possible use in a way that takes seriously the opportunities and challenges that emerge in the context of contemporary biopolitics and emerging configurations of surveillance technologies. Analyzing anthropogenic seismic activity opens up new opportunities for ethical data collection and use.","PeriodicalId":36898,"journal":{"name":"Tapuya: Latin American Science, Technology and Society","volume":"7 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-08-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"79032881","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-08-25DOI: 10.1080/25729861.2022.2100037
Óscar Aguilar, María Cecilia Díaz, Lucía Romero
ABSTRACT In this paper, we discuss the meanings assumed by citizen science for the regulation of therapeutic and medical uses of cannabis in Argentina, considering the mobilization of experiences in three municipalities of the province of Buenos Aires. Through conceptual tools of the STS field and techniques such as documentary analysis of resolutions and ordinances, participant observation, and in-depth interviews, we address the role of proximity experienced locally in the development of municipal regulation initiatives; the combination of different types of expertise (technical, scientific, medical, legal, experiential); and the processes of resignification and change of social identifications. The research shows that local regulations emerge from a heterogeneous social base that, in the form of citizen science, produces, uses, and transmits diverse expertise around the therapeutic uses of the plant and its derivatives. It also reveals that the construction processes of local government policies promote new social perceptions of certain groups (supportive growers, physicians, child users) that influence the way that therapeutic cannabis is settled as a public problem.
{"title":"Citizen science towards the regulation of medical cannabis in Argentina","authors":"Óscar Aguilar, María Cecilia Díaz, Lucía Romero","doi":"10.1080/25729861.2022.2100037","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/25729861.2022.2100037","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT In this paper, we discuss the meanings assumed by citizen science for the regulation of therapeutic and medical uses of cannabis in Argentina, considering the mobilization of experiences in three municipalities of the province of Buenos Aires. Through conceptual tools of the STS field and techniques such as documentary analysis of resolutions and ordinances, participant observation, and in-depth interviews, we address the role of proximity experienced locally in the development of municipal regulation initiatives; the combination of different types of expertise (technical, scientific, medical, legal, experiential); and the processes of resignification and change of social identifications. The research shows that local regulations emerge from a heterogeneous social base that, in the form of citizen science, produces, uses, and transmits diverse expertise around the therapeutic uses of the plant and its derivatives. It also reveals that the construction processes of local government policies promote new social perceptions of certain groups (supportive growers, physicians, child users) that influence the way that therapeutic cannabis is settled as a public problem.","PeriodicalId":36898,"journal":{"name":"Tapuya: Latin American Science, Technology and Society","volume":"49 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-08-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"85865907","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-08-25DOI: 10.1080/25729861.2022.2102136
J. Rodríguez
{"title":"Within our grasp: childhood malnutrition and the revolution taking place to end it","authors":"J. Rodríguez","doi":"10.1080/25729861.2022.2102136","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/25729861.2022.2102136","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":36898,"journal":{"name":"Tapuya: Latin American Science, Technology and Society","volume":"33 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-08-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"79367745","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-08-09DOI: 10.1080/25729861.2022.2098685
K. Lyons, M. Howarth
ABSTRACT During the global pandemic and online teaching, we co-taught the keystone course for the new environmental humanities minor at the University of Pennsylvania. Beyond introducing students to transdisciplinary modes of communication and environmental humanities analytical frameworks, we focused the course around building a public engaged collaboration with community organizations and civil society initiatives in Colombia. The final project for the class resulted in a bilingual Digital Environmental Justice Storytelling platform that invites people to learn how different communities in Colombia engage with the arts and sciences in their activism and daily life to navigate environmental health uncertainties, defend territories, and transform urban and rural life conditions. In this article, we share our experience facilitating transdisciplinary international collaboration, bilingual translation, and multimodal methods in the building of the platform. We explain the pedagogical and methodological design of the project, placing emphasis on the flows of learning established between students and their Colombian community partners. The article includes the perspectives of different participants regarding their collaborative process, reflections about the importance of multilingual and hemispheric perspectives for the environmental humanities, and the impact of digital mediums as tools for environmental justice struggles and solidarity building.
{"title":"The importance of hemispheric perspectives for the environmental humanities: reflections on bilingual digital environmental justice storytelling","authors":"K. Lyons, M. Howarth","doi":"10.1080/25729861.2022.2098685","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/25729861.2022.2098685","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT During the global pandemic and online teaching, we co-taught the keystone course for the new environmental humanities minor at the University of Pennsylvania. Beyond introducing students to transdisciplinary modes of communication and environmental humanities analytical frameworks, we focused the course around building a public engaged collaboration with community organizations and civil society initiatives in Colombia. The final project for the class resulted in a bilingual Digital Environmental Justice Storytelling platform that invites people to learn how different communities in Colombia engage with the arts and sciences in their activism and daily life to navigate environmental health uncertainties, defend territories, and transform urban and rural life conditions. In this article, we share our experience facilitating transdisciplinary international collaboration, bilingual translation, and multimodal methods in the building of the platform. We explain the pedagogical and methodological design of the project, placing emphasis on the flows of learning established between students and their Colombian community partners. The article includes the perspectives of different participants regarding their collaborative process, reflections about the importance of multilingual and hemispheric perspectives for the environmental humanities, and the impact of digital mediums as tools for environmental justice struggles and solidarity building.","PeriodicalId":36898,"journal":{"name":"Tapuya: Latin American Science, Technology and Society","volume":"36 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-08-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"75169364","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-07-21DOI: 10.1080/25729861.2022.2085648
Andrés Fernando Suarez
ABSTRACT This article raises the limitations and risks of the use of quantification to attribute responsibilities for mass crimes in transitional justice. I question the inconsistencies in the official registry of forced displacement in Colombia with respect to the distribution of responsibilities of the armed actors, taking into account the historical trajectory of the armed conflict and the differences with social records, for which I propose to investigate the conditions under which the registration technology operates and how these affect the production of figures that circulate in the public sphere with claims of truth. I propose that the production of testimonial evidence on which the official registry is based changes according to state policies and the dynamics of the armed conflict, highlighting the importance of historically and contextually situating the official registry and how the armed conflict not only leaves victims but also produces its own representations and opacities through the story told by the official registry.
{"title":"Figures and responsibilities in contexts of mass violence: limits and risks of quantification in transitional justice in Colombia","authors":"Andrés Fernando Suarez","doi":"10.1080/25729861.2022.2085648","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/25729861.2022.2085648","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT\u0000 This article raises the limitations and risks of the use of quantification to attribute responsibilities for mass crimes in transitional justice. I question the inconsistencies in the official registry of forced displacement in Colombia with respect to the distribution of responsibilities of the armed actors, taking into account the historical trajectory of the armed conflict and the differences with social records, for which I propose to investigate the conditions under which the registration technology operates and how these affect the production of figures that circulate in the public sphere with claims of truth. I propose that the production of testimonial evidence on which the official registry is based changes according to state policies and the dynamics of the armed conflict, highlighting the importance of historically and contextually situating the official registry and how the armed conflict not only leaves victims but also produces its own representations and opacities through the story told by the official registry.","PeriodicalId":36898,"journal":{"name":"Tapuya: Latin American Science, Technology and Society","volume":"12 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-07-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"79785869","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-07-12DOI: 10.1080/25729861.2022.2068332
Felipe Raglianti
ABSTRACT In this article, I follow the work of technicians organizing a collection of mummified materials in a university of Chile. In doing this, I translate some points of laboratory studies into another context: a deposit of archaeological collections. By following how technicians sort out the collections and exploring their roles in the making of knowledges tinged by hands-on experience, I unravel with a “Whiteheadean twist” how conservation practices are a matter of concern in archaeology. Insofar the mummies are preserved as “material heritages” and witnessed in public as “carriers of civilization,” these “ambassadors of the past” are haunted in turn by their histories. But in the hands of technicians, I speculate that mummified materials become archeological objects imbued with a particular mode of existence. Through their work, they get to know the life-histories of mummies and in such stories, I focus on a sense of permanence, felt as an ideal purpose of conservation in archaeological collections. I analyze this with Whitehead’s notion of civilization to underscore how conservation processes aim at attaining everlasting things. In this sense, I develop the point that civilizations function as lures for collecting and preserving things.
{"title":"Civilizing mummies: an adventure of technicians in archaeological collections","authors":"Felipe Raglianti","doi":"10.1080/25729861.2022.2068332","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/25729861.2022.2068332","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT In this article, I follow the work of technicians organizing a collection of mummified materials in a university of Chile. In doing this, I translate some points of laboratory studies into another context: a deposit of archaeological collections. By following how technicians sort out the collections and exploring their roles in the making of knowledges tinged by hands-on experience, I unravel with a “Whiteheadean twist” how conservation practices are a matter of concern in archaeology. Insofar the mummies are preserved as “material heritages” and witnessed in public as “carriers of civilization,” these “ambassadors of the past” are haunted in turn by their histories. But in the hands of technicians, I speculate that mummified materials become archeological objects imbued with a particular mode of existence. Through their work, they get to know the life-histories of mummies and in such stories, I focus on a sense of permanence, felt as an ideal purpose of conservation in archaeological collections. I analyze this with Whitehead’s notion of civilization to underscore how conservation processes aim at attaining everlasting things. In this sense, I develop the point that civilizations function as lures for collecting and preserving things.","PeriodicalId":36898,"journal":{"name":"Tapuya: Latin American Science, Technology and Society","volume":"18 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-07-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"87103558","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-07-05DOI: 10.1080/25729861.2022.2059137
Alberto Aparicio
ABSTRACT In Colombia, the country’s biodiversity has been put at the heart of its bioeconomy policies. STS scholars have analyzed bioeconomy as the generation, commodification, and sale of ownership and biological material. Nonetheless, little attention has been given to bioprospecting initiatives in developing countries, let alone the incorporation of bioprospecting in bioeconomy policy. Further, the role of narratives about the value of the biological in supporting nation-building, or the relationship between nature, state, and its citizens, remain understudied. Based on interviews and fieldwork in policymaking committees, I argue that assumptions about biodiversity’s value and its valorization are supported by the use of genomic technologies; this allows further processes of value creation to remain uninterrogated. The need for Colombia to aspire to better futures accounts for the stability of assumptions about biodiversity’s value in recent decades. The right political climate has generated momentum for biological expeditions of Colombia’s territory and the rethinking of the social compact, in a country seeking to heal the wounds of an internal conflict with armed guerrillas – to become a more diverse and cohesive society. Ultimately, knowledge of biodiversity embeds assumptions of what nature is for, supporting a sociotechnical imaginary of how the country should be.
{"title":"The road ahead: narratives and imaginaries of the value of biodiversity in shaping bioeconomy policy in Colombia","authors":"Alberto Aparicio","doi":"10.1080/25729861.2022.2059137","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/25729861.2022.2059137","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT In Colombia, the country’s biodiversity has been put at the heart of its bioeconomy policies. STS scholars have analyzed bioeconomy as the generation, commodification, and sale of ownership and biological material. Nonetheless, little attention has been given to bioprospecting initiatives in developing countries, let alone the incorporation of bioprospecting in bioeconomy policy. Further, the role of narratives about the value of the biological in supporting nation-building, or the relationship between nature, state, and its citizens, remain understudied. Based on interviews and fieldwork in policymaking committees, I argue that assumptions about biodiversity’s value and its valorization are supported by the use of genomic technologies; this allows further processes of value creation to remain uninterrogated. The need for Colombia to aspire to better futures accounts for the stability of assumptions about biodiversity’s value in recent decades. The right political climate has generated momentum for biological expeditions of Colombia’s territory and the rethinking of the social compact, in a country seeking to heal the wounds of an internal conflict with armed guerrillas – to become a more diverse and cohesive society. Ultimately, knowledge of biodiversity embeds assumptions of what nature is for, supporting a sociotechnical imaginary of how the country should be.","PeriodicalId":36898,"journal":{"name":"Tapuya: Latin American Science, Technology and Society","volume":"181 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-07-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"80230707","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-05-12DOI: 10.1080/25729861.2022.2037818
Shaozeng Zhang, Mariana Ribeiro Porto Araujo, Ana Carolina de Assis Nunes
ABSTRACT Based on ethnographic fieldwork, this article examines the origin and development of “Baobáxia,” a digital network for sharing community-produced content. Baobaxia emerged in “quilombos” (communities of run-away slaves’ descendents) in Brazil in the early 2000s and expanded to other marginalized groups in South America, Africa, and Europe. Our focus on the essential roles of baobab trees in this network raises the question of material resources sustaining the Internet and digital capitalism. Baobaxia turns out to be a “terrestrial Internet” that exposes the capitalist illusion of dematerialization and demonstrates a different approach to technology development amid the planetary environmental crises today. The analysis reveals the articulation of ancestral knowledge and new technologies in the building of Baobaxia, a network that is adaptive to local-geographical, ecological and infrastructural conditions and that supports community resistance, autonomy, and sustainability. The development of Baobaxia, historically rooted and future-oriented, is an enlightening grassroots experiment in exploring and sharing ways of making a world that may sustain life. Our study of the five-century transatlantic evolution of baobab challenges the often limited spatio-temporal framework in ethnographic research. We thus call for methodological openness to alternative perspectives from ethnographic interlocutors to guide academic understandings of the world.
{"title":"A terrestrial Internet from the quilombos: the transatlantic evolution of baobab from colonial to digital capitalism","authors":"Shaozeng Zhang, Mariana Ribeiro Porto Araujo, Ana Carolina de Assis Nunes","doi":"10.1080/25729861.2022.2037818","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/25729861.2022.2037818","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Based on ethnographic fieldwork, this article examines the origin and development of “Baobáxia,” a digital network for sharing community-produced content. Baobaxia emerged in “quilombos” (communities of run-away slaves’ descendents) in Brazil in the early 2000s and expanded to other marginalized groups in South America, Africa, and Europe. Our focus on the essential roles of baobab trees in this network raises the question of material resources sustaining the Internet and digital capitalism. Baobaxia turns out to be a “terrestrial Internet” that exposes the capitalist illusion of dematerialization and demonstrates a different approach to technology development amid the planetary environmental crises today. The analysis reveals the articulation of ancestral knowledge and new technologies in the building of Baobaxia, a network that is adaptive to local-geographical, ecological and infrastructural conditions and that supports community resistance, autonomy, and sustainability. The development of Baobaxia, historically rooted and future-oriented, is an enlightening grassroots experiment in exploring and sharing ways of making a world that may sustain life. Our study of the five-century transatlantic evolution of baobab challenges the often limited spatio-temporal framework in ethnographic research. We thus call for methodological openness to alternative perspectives from ethnographic interlocutors to guide academic understandings of the world.","PeriodicalId":36898,"journal":{"name":"Tapuya: Latin American Science, Technology and Society","volume":"85 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-05-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"72878445","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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