As we walk towards the materialization of a decolonial science and technology studies (STS) field, research methodologies that can support our dreams in such a direction become key. The STS Critical Pedagogy Graduate Seminar, led by Drs. Cora Olson and Monamie Haines, and the Abya Yala Pluriversity, invite students and faculty for a making and doing workshop on the praxis and teaching of code ethnography. Simply put, code is what makes an application or routine work. Code ethnography is a method for examining code as a socio-technical actor, considering its social, political, and economic aspects within the context of digital infrastructures (Rosa, 2022). From large language models (LLMs) to internet protocols, from medical digital devices’ programs to social media algorithms that mediate our data, code ethnography allows us to study any code in its own context.
In this 2-hour workshop, the facilitators, with different backgrounds and expertise with codes, digital and non-digital technologies, are going to guide the participants to experiment multiple dimensions of code ethnography with critical pedagogy, by applying the method to a code that participants select. No preparation or previous experience working with code is necessary. People with disabilities are more than welcome to this activity.
Based on long-term research with Indigenous and non-Indigenous engineers, data centers, and territories, the assumption of code ethnography is that infrastructure is the expression of the codes that it carries, as much as our bodies express the cultural codes we carry with us. Participants will experiment with a brief ethnographic investigation process applied to code and infrastructure, obtaining practical knowledge to replicate after the workshop.
By the end of the workshop, participants are expected to understand the benefits of integrating nonhuman actors in ethnographic methods as well as to feel invited to include lived experiences in the analysis of code. Through practical and multisensorial exercises, participants will have a better understanding of the role of the code ethnographer, and how to examine code as language to shed light on its values and the power relationships that it embeds and expresses.
Co-facilitators:
Jess Reia (they, them), Assistant Professor of Data Sciences, University of Virginia
Andreza Jorge (she, her), Ph.D. in Dance, Ph.D. Candidate at ASPECT, Virginia Tech
Gabriel Santos de Oliveira (he, his), Amazonian Archaeologist, Ph.D. student in Anthropology, University of Virginia
Fernanda R. Rosa (she, her), Assistant Professor of STS, Virginia Tech
