From Freedom to Tinker:
If you talk about ‘metadata’, ‘big data’ and ‘Big Brother’ just as easily as you order a pizza, ethnography and anthropology are probably not your first points of reference. But the outcome of a recent encounter of ethnographer Tom Boellstorff and Edward Snowden (not IRL but IRP), is that tech policy wonks and researchers should be careful with their day to day vocabulary, as concepts carry politics of control and power. In ‘Making big data, in theory’, ethnographer and anthropologist Tom Boellstorff discusses Edward Snowden’s revelations IRP (In Research Paper). The paper, published on 7 October, is a refreshing 12 page take on the construction of some very dominant concepts in tech policy and research today.

For the full story, please visit https://freedom-to-tinker.com/blog/axel/when-an-ethnographer-met-edward-....