This bonus content is a reading from Platypus, the CASTAC Blog. The full post by Jack Leff can be read at https://blog.castac.org/2024/04/tear-gas-as-punishment/. About the post: By examining the interplay between state use of tear gas to punish activists and the protestors fighting against it, we catch a glimpse into the racial capitalist operations of the United States and where it is vulnerable to resistance. This essay examines the police tactic of kettling, how it is wielded to punish activists, and how radical left-wing organizers respond.

This bonus content is a reading from Platypus, the CASTAC Blog. The full post by Soojin Kim can be read at https://blog.castac.org/2024/04/spatial-approaches-to-livestreaming-a-methodological-exploration-in-digital-ethnography/. About the post: This is my reflection on the frustrations that I encountered during the initial phases of my fieldwork within AfreecaTV. Between late 2016 and early 2018, I conducted "online" and "offline" ethnographic fieldwork for my master’s thesis on the livestreaming culture. This journey led me to explore spatial approaches to digital ethnography, which I will discuss in this post. (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 Alexandra Dantzer can be read at https://blog.castac.org/2024/04/two-insomniacs-discuss-routine-and-restlessness-through-google-tracking/. About the post: This piece approaches questions about life, time-waste, routine, and restlessness through a different lens. Namely, Google tracking data serve as an elicitation device and a conversation starter to help me think about the everyday routines and rhythms of the lives of people I have talked with, as well as my own routines. (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 Ashley Thuthao Keng Dam can be read at https://blog.castac.org/2024/03/recipes-of-resistance-global-digital-gastrosolidarity-for-palestine/. About the post: In this essay, the author weaves together insights on Palestinian foodways with their past ruminations on digital food, its related activism, and how these flourish and interact on digital food spaces (DFS). The author expands upon past considerations of how they understood and defined digital gastrodiplomacy to include a typology refered to as "digital gastro-solidarity."

This bonus content is a reading from Platypus, the CASTAC Blog. The full post by Fei Yuan can be read at https://blog.castac.org/2024/03/bed-time-storytelling/. About the post: Memories, hallucinations, and unfulfilled dreams are narrated from the bed during the final chapters of life. I seek to highlight the experiences of those in the hospice ward who, despite being confined to their beds, are actively living through their final moments, rather than just waiting out their last days. (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 Lea Happ can be read at https://blog.castac.org/2024/03/who-knows-about-ethical-research-reflections-on-research-ethics-and-vulnerability-in-abortion-research/. About the post: As a feminist researcher, I have found it at times difficult to navigate the complex nexus of agency and vulnerability. Ultimately, for me, doing feminist research means centring the particular circumstances of my research site and foregrounding the voices of those who draw their expertise from their life and work when determining methodological, ethical, and conceptual approaches. (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 Jacob Weger can be read at https://blog.castac.org/2024/02/anthropology-sts-and-the-politics-of-imagination-in-navigating-socio-environmental-change/. About the post: Imagination is a critical resource in the pursuit of sustainable futures, yet it is often constrained by powerful structural forces and vested interests. Anthropology and Science and Technology Studies (STS) offer unique perspectives and tools that can help identify tacit imaginaries and shed light on alternative ones, opening such discussions to a wider range of shared visions of what is possible or desirable in order to cultivate more inclusive, equitable, and sustainable worlds.

This bonus content is a reading from Platypus, the CASTAC Blog. The full post by sebastian levar spivey can be read at https://blog.castac.org/2024/02/lonely-planet-looking-for-connection-citizen-science-seti-research-at-nasa/. About the post: The stakes here are cosmic and immediate: who are humans in extraterran (not yet extraterrestrial) relationships, and what becomes of the Earth when it exists as a participant with, rather than antithesis to, other heavenly bodies? In such a welter, careful attention must be given to the way worlding, knowing, and relating are (differently) enacted, with which stories and ideas those enactments occur, and in what ways these enactments matter.

This bonus content is a reading from Platypus, the CASTAC Blog. The full post by Kimberly Sanchez can be read at https://blog.castac.org/2024/01/water-scarcity-hydropolitics-and-the-importance-of-materiality-at-the-foothills-of-the-rocky-mountains/. About the post: As one of many in a very visible, linear collective, surface waters and irrigation infrastructures like canals, dams, and reservoirs foster knowledge of other water users such as Jose as well as the need to actively maintain a steady flow of water in order to enjoy a similar flow of health, wealth and happiness for herds, families and communities. Through comparing two cases of water use among livestock producers in Wyoming, we are reminded of the need to take account of the material conditions that help give form to social relations, particularly those which constitute fluid publics.

This bonus content is a reading from Platypus, the CASTAC Blog. The full post by Renzo Taddei can be read at https://blog.castac.org/2023/12/milei-crowds-and-concrete-waves-in-argentina/. About the post: Thousands of individuals were now one massive block moving up and down. The stands shook. I felt the largest reinforced concrete stand in the largest soccer stadium in South America tremble beneath my feet. For a second, I was filled with panic. If the vibration reached the resonance frequency, the disaster would be of monstrous proportions.