Click the star to add/remove an item to/from your individual schedule.
You need to be logged in to avail of this functionality.
Log in
- Convenor:
-
Patrick Keilbart
(Goethe University Frankfurt)
Send message to Convenor
- Format:
- Workshop
- Regional groups:
- Southeast Asia
- Transfers:
- Open for transfers
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.
Accepted contributions:
Session 1Contribution long abstract:
How can we know about a music genre from the vantage point of an infrastructure? Roaming inside and around three studios of Guwahati, Assam, India while conducting ethnography for 14 months, an anthropologist ruminates an existing sub-genre “Asomiya adhunik geet” (Assamese Modern Song) or composers, musicians, engineers around the studios referred as Modern songs, from the vantage point of sound making infrastructure. What musicians of Assamese popular music pursue this genre as its evolution from its origin as All India Radio (AIR), Indian state-owned public radio broadcaster, produced genre called “Sugam Sangeet” vis-à-vis produce regular interval and engage with contemporary audio technologies in recording studios which I say as hardware infrastructure and most importantly the technology which formulate the sound i.e. timbre of this genre which I call it software infrastructure i.e. Virtual Studio Technology (VST) is an audio plug-in software interface. For this exploration, the paper will engage with the entanglement between musicians and audio technologies in production of Asomiya adhunik geet” and VSTs as the software infrastructure how it is metamorphosing timbre of a genre of a popular music. Finally, paper will argue translocality and its discontents, describing VST plugins made from abundance of resources in technological center Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH, a Hamburg, Germany based musical software and hardware company is creating songs of scarcity in periphery like Guwahati, Assam, India.
Contribution short abstract:
Based on three different cases of TechnoEnvironments, namely Organic Agriculture, Pencak Silat, and Puro Mangkunegaran, this paper analyses the un/commoning of social media and digital resources such as local knowledge and cultural values in Indonesia.
Contribution long abstract:
Digital commons represent a field of tension in which people can benefit from enhanced participation, on the one hand, while technologies and media content, on the other, are increasingly being exploited, manipulated, and domesticated for political projects. In Indonesia, alternative imaginaries of cultural
modernization and modern TechnoEnvironments, (re-)produced by civil society actors via new, digital media technologies, are taken up by a very receptive Indonesian government but are not necessarily implemented in the imagined ways of those whose embodied knowledge and practice are being “harvested” for policy making. The process of national, political visions and strategies influencing public discourse and imaginaries, and vice versa, unfolds as circular reimagining of TechnoEnvironments.
With a focus on digital activism, digital commons (as a subset of the commons), with resources such as local knowledge and cultural values that are created and/or maintained online, get to the centre of attention. They present a suitable approach to investigating the organisation of collective action, placing it beyond market and state. Identifying practices and politics of un/communing digital resources – above all local knowledge and cultural values – in governance and social activism reveals how powerful social media discourses and imaginaries actually are.
Based on three different cases of TechnoEnvironments, namely Organic Agriculture, Pencak Silat, and Puro Mangkunegaran, this paper analyses the un/commoning of social media and digital resources such as local knowledge and cultural values in Indonesia. Taking Barendregt’s and Schneider’s (2020) call for a careful and ethnographically informed approach to digital activism seriously, the presented cases from Indonesia contribute to a better understanding of today’s forms of digital activism in Southeast Asia [and to its theorizing from a Southeast Asian perspective].
Contribution short abstract:
In this presentation I explore the different forms of knowledge production about the state of the natural environment in Vietnam. Examining these different ways of communicating with/about nature provide insight into power relations in discourses about the state of the natural environment.
Contribution long abstract:
As people in other parts of the world, people in Vietnam experience dramatic changes to their natural environment caused by climate change and industrialization. This paper explores how different techniques and technologies of knowledge production intertwine in human encounters with nature and compete to be heard in debates about nature and environmental change in
Vietnam.
I am approaching this question drawing on qualitative research in a peri-urban village in Dong Nai province in the Southeast of Vietnam. Within a period of ten years, this village was transformed from an area dominated by agriculture to an industrial and residential area. Building on concepts from environmental anthropology and sociology of knowledge the study explores how people make sense of the changes taking place in their natural environment.
Different techniques and technologies of knowledge production inform discourses about the state of the natural environment in the village. On the one hand, people constantly interact with
nature using their bodily perceptions, e.g., smell, taste, sight. Collective memory forms a framework for measuring change: By communicating about their perceptions and comparing them to past experiences, people create information about a dynamic process of environmental change. On the other hand, scientific knowledge production, using technologies, such as chemical
analyses or computer models, dominate official statements about the natural environment. This study shows how these different ways of producing knowledge about the natural environment in
the village are employed by different actors. Examining these different ways of communicating with/about nature provide insight into power relations inherent in the discourses about the state of the natural environment in Vietnam.
Contribution long abstract:
This PhD research examines the role of judicial technologies in shaping access to justice and governance in Sabah, Malaysia. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork, it analyzes two key initiatives within the state’s legal system: AI-supported sentencing
for criminal cases and the Mobile Court program. Both initiatives reflect significant efforts to address systemic inefficiencies while extending the judiciary’s reach into diverse socio-legal contexts.
AI-supported sentencing, implemented exclusively for criminal cases, seeks to standardize judicial decision-making and mitigate bias. However, its reliance on algorithmic outputs introduces challenges related to transparency, judicial discretion, and the broader implications of automated decision-making processes. The Mobile Court program facilitates access to legal services in remote and underserved regions, addressing pressing issues such as statelessness and the registration of births and marriages. Beyond its judicial function, the program also delivers auxiliary services, including healthcare and infrastructure support, thus expanding its impact on community welfare.
Sabah, one of Malaysia’s poorest states, has long contested its position within the federation, seeking greater autonomy and equitable resource distribution. The adoption of judicial technologies serves as both a symbol and instrument in this
struggle, with Sabah’s proactive implementation of these innovations reflecting efforts to assert autonomy and modernize on its own terms. At the same time, the judiciary’s expanding presence into Sabah also reflects broader federal strategies to
consolidate control and integrate the state more deeply into the national framework. These dynamics not only underscore the contested role of technology in legal governance but also align with similar tensions across Southeast Asia, where local autonomy and state power frequently intersect.