This bonus content is a reading from Platypus, the CASTAC Blog. The full post by Gabrielle Hanley-Mott can be read at https://blog.castac.org/2022/06/the-allowable-limit-of-disability/. About the post: My argument here is that it is important to decouple physical pain from the idea of suffering; These dogs are in pain, and the process of commoditization, at the hands of humans, has led to their pain and suffering. But a rights-based campaign, which a legal case is, is often based in upholding hegemonic systems.

This bonus content is a reading from Platypus, the CASTAC Blog. The full post by Benjamin Schaefer can be read at https://blog.castac.org/2022/06/detangling-molecular-hauntings-hair-as-a-site-of-preserving-lived-experience/. About the post: Using ancient molecules, such as hormones, embedded in hair renders it possible to reconstruct the socially embodied lived experiences, by inferring their psychosocial stress responses, in the months leading up to their last haircut (or death).

This bonus content is a reading from Platypus, the CASTAC Blog. The full post by Cara Ryan can be read at https://blog.castac.org/2022/06/inclusion-and-opportunities-for-equal-participation-for-autistic-university-students-in-france/. About the post: When a previously excluded group (like those identified as “aspies”) becomes “included” in something (like the French public university system) that something comes to be called “inclusive.” But inclusion, as Foucault and many others have pointed out always rests on a binary of inclusion/exclusion (Peters and Besley 2014). So while we might encounter the word “inclusion” and think “everyone,” that is never the case. In a sense then, “exclusion” is baked into every project of “inclusion” from the start.

This bonus content is a reading from Platypus, the CASTAC Blog. The full post by Nathan Klembara can be read at https://blog.castac.org/2022/05/diversity-equity-and-inclusion-dei-in-epistemologies-the-line-between-bodies-and-ideas/. About the post: If we are going to make archaeology, and other sciences, truly inclusive, DEI initiatives require reconceptualizing what science is, not just changing hiring and recruiting practices. To truly create inclusive research spaces, we must be accepting of both diverse bodies and diverse ideas.

This bonus content is a reading from Platypus, the CASTAC Blog. The full post by Svetlana Borodina can be read at https://blog.castac.org/2022/05/technologies-of-equal-participation-formats-designs-practices-introduction/. About the post: If Kelty looks back in time and offers a historical ethnography of participation in the Western world, the posts of this series look synchronically and laterally. From the broad range of calls for participation, a specific kind interests the authors whose work is featured in this series: those contexts where “equal participation” has been intentionally attempted or at least aspired for. The authors provide ethnographic insights from across the globe into how various practico-material assemblages become labeled as signs of or conduits to equal participation (hence, the discussion of political forms of subjectivity) and what kind of presence and actions they activate and conceal.

This bonus content is a reading from Platypus, the CASTAC Blog. The full post by Kymberley Chu can be read at https://blog.castac.org/2022/05/viral-entanglements-in-malaysian-porcine-worlds/. About the post: A More-than-Human One Health approach encourages cooperation among humans and nonhumans in facilitating interspecies solidarity. Perhaps, we can start by imagining post-extractivist imaginaries beyond using a negative conceptual registry of post-apocalyptic worlds. Academic spaces have the intellectual and creative capacity to trace the life and death cycles of nonhuman animals beyond extractive narratives. As our worlds become more susceptible to pandemics, the porous demarcation between domesticated/wild and human/nonhuman reveals the fragility of life under capitalism. Content warning: This post contains photos of factory farming that viewers may find distressing.

This bonus content is a reading from Platypus, the CASTAC Blog. The full post by Valentina Moraima Acuña Bravo can be read at https://blog.castac.org/2022/05/thinking-in-constellations-problematizing-indigeneity-in-the-atacama-desert-chile/. About the post: Thinking in constellations allows us to delve into the unique experience and the history of different conceptions of indigeneity instead of focusing only on identifying specific characteristics of indigeneity. If we consider the constellation of concepts that indigeneity evokes, we can reconsider the possibilities of “indigenous” rights and policies. This implies avoiding totalizing definitions of indigeneity and moving toward recognizing the unique experience, history, and culture of places and people.

This bonus content is a reading from Platypus, the CASTAC Blog. The full post by Doyeon Shin can be read at https://blog.castac.org/2022/05/revisiting-human-machine-relationships-and-efforts-of-feminist-sts/. About the post: Feminist STS perspectives and critiques are fundamental in this reimagining of human-machine relationships because they open new prospects for pondering related mainstream ideas while raising questions on what people perceive as natural and take for granted. Based on these feminist STS perspectives, I believe that we can propose different views and explanations of human-machine relationships. By focusing on relationality and not on novel functional developments, we may be able to view smartphones as active actants[1], that relate with us, just like biotic actants such as humans.

This bonus content is a reading from Platypus, the CASTAC Blog. The full post by Catarina Morawska, Ana Cecília Oliveira Campos, Bruno Campos Cardoso, Felipe Vander Velden, Gabriel Sanchez, Luisa Fanaro and Luisa Tui Sampaio can be read at https://blog.castac.org/2022/04/alliances-and-institutional-partnerships-for-an-engaged-anthropology-of-science-and-technology/. About the post: Conceptual transformations and emerging thematic agendas in the anthropology of science and technology become clearly visible in STS conferences. Paying particular attention to conferences that take place in the global South has the potential to open up an understanding of post-colonial scientific endeavors within our own field of expertise. A case in point was the 8th edition of the biannual meeting of the Brazilian Network of Anthropology of Science and Technology, known as ReACT (Reunião de Antropologia da Ciência e da Tecnologia), which took place on November 22-26, 2021. (This episode is available in additional languages on Platypus, The CASTAC Blog.)

This bonus content is a reading from Platypus, the CASTAC Blog. The full post by Liz Jackson, Alex Haagaard and Rua Williams can be read at https://blog.castac.org/2022/04/disability-dongle/. About the post: Disability Dongles are contemporary fairy tales that appeal to the abled imagination by presenting a heroic designer-protagonist whose prototype provides a techno-utopian (re)solution to the design problem. Disability Dongle rhetoric instills in students the value of a quick fix over structural change, thus preventing them from seeking out, participating in, and contributing to existing inquiry. By labeling these material-discursive phenomena—the designed artifacts and the discourse through which their meaning is constituted—we work to shift the focus from their misguided concern about our bodies to their under-analyzed intentions and ambitions. (This episode is available in additional languages on Platypus, The CASTAC Blog.)