August 2010
2 posts
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Privacy and The Anonymous user in China:...
Since my talk on neo-informationalism in regards to the Google-China saga, I started thinking that one of the blind-spots of living in a neo-informationalist world is to see “free-information” as a binary - either information is open or its not, either you make your identity known or not. This totally builds upon danah boyd ‘s thinking about privacy as binary - either we have...
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July 2010
1 post
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GOOGLIST REALISM: The Google-China saga and the...
When Google left China in early 2010, many attributed Google’s move as a valiant and moral response to the Chinese government’s strict information filtering rules. I disagreed with this point of view and wrote a post on Cultural Bytes on what I thought were the real reasons for Google’s quick departure from China.
A few months later, I was asked to keynote the New Directions...
June 2010
2 posts
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(Rant Alert) Spatial geographies of the World Wide...
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been at a technology conference when a white male asks me what I research, and when I say something like “technology use in China,” they will at some point say, “oh man China is like the Wild Wild West.” I usually respond by saying, “no, it’s not.” And then often they proudly respond with, “ya...
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Three useful perspectives on technology, design,...
As someone who researches the social side of technology, I am constantly trying to find new ways to talk to technologists that technology itself does not create social change, rather it’s how technology is socially embedded in a variety of institutions and cultural contexts.
Even though I am constantly trying to avoid the ICT4D literature, I find that I am always coming back to the the...
May 2010
4 posts
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I have been awarded a Fulbright! Off to China for...
I just found out that I have received a Fulbright!
My proposal, Chinese Migrants Families in the Information Age: Intensive Technology and Digital Urbanism. has been approved for funding by the Chinese and US government for research!
The Fulbright require that researchers remain in the host country for at least 10 months. So I’ll be moving to Wuhan, China next March to conduct...
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Upcoming Workshop - Transnational Times: Locality,...
My great friend (and China researcher sidekick), Silvia Lindtner, is putting on a workshop (along with Irina Shklovski, Janet Vertesi, Paul Dourish) about the issues specific to technology design and research for transnational users or use contexts. It will take place on September 26, 2010 in Copenhagen, Denmark. Submit a 2-4 page paper about your related research to Silvia by June 15, 2010....
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“Ethnography’s tremendous potential for initiating contradictory dialogues that...”
– Bourgois, Philippe (1996) Confronting Anthropology, Education, and Inner-City Apartheid. American Anthropologist 98(2):249-258.
(via anthropophagous)
(via fuckyeahanthropology)
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“I was not prepared for the elementary fact that an anthropologist is at work...”
– pg xviii, James C. Scott, Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance. Yale University Press, 1987.
April 2010
7 posts
8 tags
Upcoming Conference! Designing for Freedom: Values...
My good friend Morgan Ames is putting on a really great afternoon conference in a few weeks at Stanford University, Designing for Freedom: Values in Communication Technologies. It’s a critical examination into how communication technology designers build certain values into their products and how users react to these products.
Morgan will be speaking on the panel about her dissertation...
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Playing FarmVille?: Casual Games maintaining...
One of the fun things that I get to do while working at Nokia Research is play Farmville! Apparently Farmville has more players than twitter users - that is craaazy! And now you can buy crops that are sponsored by advertisers!
I started thinking that something else is going on in Farmville other than the fertilizing and planting of crops. And the good thing is that my colleague Liz Bales was...
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Why I love fieldwork: becoming a better...
I started to write this post about how much I love fieldwork when I had just returned from my last field work trip to Oaxaca, Mexico from December 2009 to January 2010. But I’m just getting around to posting it! This will be a 4 part post that shows 4 excerpts taken out of my field notes (unedited) on observations that have nothing to do with technology usage.
I just returned from...
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Why I Love Fieldwork - Post 1 of 4: I touched the...
This is the 1st post of a 4-part post on my fieldwork experience in Oaxaca, Mexico. This are unedited field notes that show the moments that have nothing to do with technology during my fieldwork. Here is where I explain the context for why I’m sharing these notes. (Post 1,Post 2,Post 3,Post 4)
-post-4-of-4-eating-live-insect”>Post 4)
I felt the heartbeat of a baby donkey inside...
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Why I Love Fieldwork - Post 2 of 4: spending New...
This is the 1st post of a 4-part post on my fieldwork experience in Oaxaca, Mexico. This are unedited field notes that show the moments that have nothing to do with technology during my fieldwork. Here is where I explain the context for why I’m sharing these notes. (Post 1,Post 2,Post 3,Post 4)
After eating tamales and hugging everyone with the New YEars blessing, Elizabet went to the...
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Why I Love Fieldwork - Post 3 of 4: Time for the...
This is the 1st post of a 4-part post on my fieldwork experience in Oaxaca, Mexico. This are unedited field notes that show the moments that have nothing to do with technology during my fieldwork. Here is where I explain the context for why I’m sharing these notes. (Post 1,Post 2,Post 3,Post 4)
Manny and Leonardo came with us to the Jaripeo. Leonardo drove to the Jaripeo. We parked the car....
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Why I Love Fieldwork - Post 4 of 4: Eating Live...
This is the 1st post of a 4-part post on my fieldwork experience in Oaxaca, Mexico. This are unedited field notes that show the moments that have nothing to do with technology during my fieldwork. Here is where I explain the context for why I’m sharing these notes. (Post 1,Post 2,Post 3,Post 4)
I am so sad to leave Sabinillo. Today was our last morning and everything would be much more...
March 2010
3 posts
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Researching at Nokia w/ Jofish and the IDEA team!
I am so excited to announce that I’ve started a research internship with Nokia Research Center (NRC) Palo Alto!. I’m working with Jofish Kaye and the IDEA Team (Innovate Design Experience Animate), which is led by Mirjana Spasojevic. The IDEA team is super diverse and there are so many people doing cool things.
This is my first time working outside of academia and with a technology...
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Social Ruptures = opportunity for cultural shifts:...
I just discovered the ideas of Michael Cartier - he’s kinda like Gilles Deleuze + Manuel De Landa - but more concrete and understandable. At least that’s how his translator, Jon Husband of Wirearchy Site, makes him sound. What I am fascinated about is how Michael speaks of ruptures as opportunities for cultural shifts.
Cartier proposes 4 different scenarios for the 21st Century:...
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Deleuze and New Technology - edited by Mark Poster...
I am getting my Deleuzian fix with Deleuze and New Technology . This book book just arrived yesterday. I dream of having enough time to really sit down and read these essays. Probably won’t happen for while.
This is edited by Mark Poster and David Savat. I love love love Mark Poster (super fan of Information Please), so I can’t imagine how much fun this will be to read Poster on...
January 2010
3 posts
24 tags
My Suggestions for Making Google's Services More...
Google announced on its company blog that Chinese hackers had attacked its users and as a result Google.CN may leave China due to the security breaches.
While unfortunate that Google.CN may be shutting down, my ethnographic work in China revealed five things that aren’t being told in the current story:
Many Chinese internet users don’t find Google to be very useful. Therefore, a...
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Internet cafes in China: The Closest Thing to a...
I did some preliminary fieldwork at the Xinke Migrant school in Wuhan. Here is a story that I think illustrates the misunderstandings about “internet addiction” among youth in China and why government initiated policies limiting internet use among youth will not be effective. These policies aim to curb internet use among youth in public internet cafes, not in private homes....
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New Product: Microsoft Mischief, an interactive...
The new Microsoft Mischief seems like an ingenious extension of powerpoint! I would love to see this technology being used in the classroom.
This product is being marketed as a tool for teachers in less unevenly developed countries.
One of the things that came to my mind was that other than the basic tools needed (computer, projector, stable electricity for at least 1 hour), do...
December 2009
2 posts
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Corporate Responsibility in the Age of Algorithms:...
Type in HP + Cam + Racism in Google Search and you will see 1,000 posts on this topic in the past 24 hours and 13,000 in the past week.
What I am most amazed by is the language that HP used in their online acknowledgment of the Youtube video:
“Everything we do is focused on ensuring that we provide a high-quality experience for all our customers, who are ethnically diverse and...
November 2009
4 posts
4 tags
great quote about ethnography
All of us are watchers—of television, of clocks, of traffic — but few of us are observers. Everyone is looking; not many are seeing.
Todos somos miradores—de la tele, de los relojes, del transito—pero pocos de nosotros somos observadores. Todos estan mirando, pero no todos estan viendo.
— Peter M. Leschak”
I think this such a great quote for teaching or understanding the role of...
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Map-hole: Technologies of the Mundan and...
(reblogged on Digital Urbanims)
this is a great example of how there’s always room for exciting innovation in everyday objects- even the mostly seemingly mundane can become layered with meaning and knowledge. Maphole is a guide to pedestrians (invented by Jiae Kwon). I wonder if a cut will make these real!
IWhat I would love to observe is the use of these map-holes in a city and to see...
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I'm starting to think about how to visualize my...
I created this post on my other site, Digital Urbanisms (I just started it a few weeks ago). It’s about my current efforts to begin thinking about how to visualize my data - so it’s relevant for Cultural Bytes since this is where I talk about my research process.
Ever since I moved back to the US from China, I’ve been on a visualization craze - inspired by many of the...
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flash ethnography: observations of a doctor's use...
I took my grandma to the doctors for her annual today. The doctor that we have been with for the last 5 years moved to another office. So today we had a new doctor. I gave the new doctor a brief overview of the last 5 years of my grandma’s medical history. Our new doctor was wonderful, personable, and attentive.
During the entire updating process, the doctor was primarily talking to...
October 2009
2 posts
9 tags
Erving Goffman, Cellphones, Social Cohesion
Andy Orum most recent post, What sociologist Erving Goffman could tell us about social networking and Internet identity on O’Reilly Radar, has brought back graduate course work memories of reading the works of our dear 73rd President of the American Sociological Association.
Goffman is most famous for his work on presentation of one’s identity in American culture. He studied...
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Livescribe Pulse SmartPen: An Ethnographer's dream...
Livescribe just announced the next iteration of their beautiful Pulse Pen, a new 4gig model in titanium and black. The Livescribe pen is a digital pen that writes on digital paper, records your writing, records audio, and does many other cool stuff. Essentially you dont’ ever have to scan in what you write anymore! With their special paper and pen, you can have everything digitally...
July 2009
2 posts
8 tags
Village Technologies: Remote Fertilizer Monitoring
i’ve started doing preliminary interviews with youth who are from villages and are now residing in Beijing. I’m trying to get a better understanding of the different ways that youth use ICTs in their village before coming to the city. Ultimately my research in Wuhan will focus on ICT usage in the city, but I think it’s important that I am able to situate urban ICT usage in a...
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June 2009
7 posts
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Spending time with my dissertation chair in...
how many people get to see their dissertation advisor when they are in the field! Not many!
I arrived in Shanghai from Wuhan and spent the night at Judy and Richard Madsen’s place. Richard Madsen has been teaching a class on China and Religion for 1 year at Fudan University. They are moving in two days back to the states - so it worked out perfectly to see richard and give him an upate...
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I am now in Wuhan, China, setting up fieldwork site. I’ve been talking to Wuhan University and some local schools about my dissertation research on analyzing how migrants’ use of technology is reshaping the urban space and how internet policies affect migrants’ communication patterns. Before I head to Beijing on June 14th to work with the CNNIC (China Internet Network...
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Doggy Cellphones, Culturally Relevant...
Bio-Sense has created a collar to respond to a universal alarm bark that dogs make when they are in a threatening situation. So the way it works is that when the dog makes an alarm bark the collar sends a SMS to the owner! Welcome to the world of doggy cellphones!
Ok this news may not seem relevant to Cultural Bytes but there are two very important reasons why I am writing this post: REASON #1 -...
May 2009
3 posts
25 tags
Design Thinking as a Creative Process: Technology,...
I just discovered this whole field called “DESIGN THINKING.” It’s a process for designing practical and creative resolutions for an end action/product/program that brings about improvement for a group of people. What I like about this process is that it defines itself against ANALYTICAL THINKING - because design thinking is a “creative process based around the...
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Interpretive Magic!: Ethnoconsumerism with Prof....
I must admit that although I say that technology usage is grounded in a cultural context, I struggle to operationalize “culture” for the fear of reducing it to some causal variable or some vague concept that dilutes what I am arguing. I haven’t found much solace in sociology’s linear models that isolate “culture’s” effects - as it repeats the whole...
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Interrogating the "Developing" vs "Developed"...
When speaking with others about my work, I do not use the word “developing” as a label for the countries I work in - China and Mexico (or India, where I was last year). But it’s difficult when everyone else insists on calling all places outside of the US and Europe “developing” (or even under-developed).
Who has the power to define when a country is...
April 2009
3 posts
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Just returned from NSF meeting in DC with...
In preparation for my summer research project, “China’s Internet Policy and Digital Network Architecture: Information Communication Technology (ICT) Practices among Youths and Migrant” at China Internet Network Information Center 中国互联网络信息中心 (CNNIC), I went to DC for an NSF-sponsored meeting for the EAPSI program through the Office of International Science and Engineering (OISE).
I...
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Cloud Computing for Researchers - Mendeley Your...
Occasionally on Cultural Bytes I will review tools that help my ethnographer-self stay sane, organized and useful to society. I am confident to say that every researcher I know IS CURRENTLY dealing with what I am addressing below - citation and PDF nightmares. Today is the first day you can take a step towards freedom, organization, and access.
In Russian, Mendeley means comforter of the mind....
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Is the cellphone a mundane non "technology" among...
When does something stop being a “technology”? The word technology is a loaded term that is full of futuristic newness— the information age, the network society, the post-industrial era—-all the hopes and fears of “modernity.” These thoughts swirled in my mind when my friend forwarded me Karen’s Leland’s column from The Huffington Post, Does...
March 2009
3 posts
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Cultural Fractals: The Recursiveness of Practice
I have been thinking a lot about fractals lately. I first discovered fractals 10 years ago when Kenyatta Cheese introduced me to godel, Escher, Bach (the book I dream of finishing and comprehending). Well just recently on some Friday night at 2am I was watching Nova’s special on fractal love, Hunting the Hidden Dimension. As I was falling asleep to Mendelbrot’s soothing voice, I...
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I received a National Science Foundation (NSF)...
I am so excited to find out that I have received a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant! I will be going this summer to work with in China with the China Internet Network Information Center 中国互联网络信息中心 (CNNIC), the government agency that manages all of China’s internet affairs (equivalent to the FCC in the US). I met with CNNIC last summer in Beijing. We agreed upon a summer project in...
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About Cultural Bytes!
Cultural Bytes engages with research on information communication technology (ICT) users of low-income communities. This is run by Tricia Wang - me! My motivation is to better understand how low-income/under-served populations manage their social connections with a variety of practices. I bring attention to the ways that low-income users challenge, change, and innovate ICT usage patterns. I focus...