Short Abstract:

In this workshop we discuss the relationship between infrastructural materialities and contemporary socio-technical and natural environments with respect to power relations and social imaginaries. Focusing on infrastructures and practices of Un/Commoning, we reflect on TechnoEnvironments in SEA.

Long Abstract:

Environmental transformations in Southeast Asia have received much attention in anthropological studies on this area; what has been less examined so far is the link between these environmental and rampant (digital) technological transformations.

In this workshop, we explore anthropological perspectives on evolving socio-materialities connected to the entanglements of technological and environmental transformations in Southeast Asia. These socio-materialities consisting of networks of artefacts, relations, human and non-human bodies and landscapes are increasingly shaping life, work, culture and identity in Southeast Asia. Beyond interest in the relationship between media technology and the physical and natural environment, this also means to trace the complex and dynamic relationship between media infrastructural materialities and our contemporary socio-technical and natural environments. Current processes of digital and material Un/Commoning in Southeast Asia have effects on social and political in- and exclusions, economic developments and the ecological relations between humans, non-humans and the world.

The scope of the workshop will be relationships between infrastructural materialities and contemporary socio-technical and natural environments, including power relations, social imaginaries and concepts of sustainability. Focusing on infrastructures and practices of digital and material Un/Commoning, we reflect on the digital commons as part of TechnoEnvironments in Southeast Asia.

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