Platypod is the official podcast of the Committee for the Anthropology of Science, Technology, and Computing. We talk about anthropology, STS, and all things tech. Tune in for conversations with researchers and experts on how technology is shaping our world. (Jingle by chimerical. CC BY-NC 4.0)
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Kilitl: Living with a Green Part of the World. Edible Greens, Language, Knowledge, and Territory
Wednesday, September 9, 2026 • Duration 22:33.819999999999936
This bonus content is a reading from Platypus, the CASTAC Blog. The full post by Aldo Federico Palafox Hernández can be read at https://blog.castac.org/2026/09/kilitl-living-with-a-green-part-of-the-world-edible-greens-language-knowledge-and-territory/. About the post: In Mexico, quelites refers to uncultivated edible plants. The word has a Nahuatl origin derived from kilitl, a term referring to these edible weeds. The earliest dictionaries of colonial Mexico translated kilitl as “vegetable”, an equivalence that obscured the fact that they were collected (not cultivated), and interpreted them as any other green crop. There is an ongoing trend to revaluate quelites as a way to counter their gradual disappearance from national diets. These efforts involve universities, governmental and private institutions, civil associations, and organized communities. (This episode is available in additional languages on Platypus, The CASTAC Blog.)
Reclaiming the Future of Work: Series Introduction
Monday, September 7, 2026 • Duration
This bonus content is a reading from Platypus, the CASTAC Blog. The full post by Lucy Pei, Joy Ming, Kim Fernandes and Rosemary Steup can be read at https://blog.castac.org/2026/09/reclaiming-the-future-of-work-series-introduction/. About the post: Global South, global majority, and decolonial lenses help us to break out of dominant points of view. Taking on a range of methods, the empirical and conceptual works draw lessons from workers’ embodied experiences and relationships to one another and to the places they work, from discourse and discursive objects, and from speculative engagements.
Venture Capital’s Due Diligence, or Ethnography’s Adversarial Twin?
Friday, September 4, 2026 • Duration 13:13.57000000000005
This bonus content is a reading from Platypus, the CASTAC Blog. The full post by Al Lim can be read at https://blog.castac.org/2026/09/venture-capitals-due-diligence-or-ethnographys-adversarial-twin/. About the post: Anthropologists have long framed studying up as a problem of access: how to get inside institutions that do not want us (Nader 1972; Souleles 2018). My problem was different. Having spent time doing both ethnographic fieldwork and leading several venture investments, my problem was less about access than about processing the continuities and frictions between these two roles.
Silt, Sea and Coastal Engineering
Wednesday, September 2, 2026 • Duration 17:18.789999999999964
This bonus content is a reading from Platypus, the CASTAC Blog. The full post by Sridhar Raghavan can be read at https://blog.castac.org/2026/09/silt-sea-and-coastal-engineering/. About the post: In 1870, the Vedaranyam canal is built connecting the Salt Pans nearby Palk bay coasts 5 to Nagapattinam – serving twin purposes of cheap transport of salt to Nagapattinam for trade, as well as deepening the river channels slightly upstream of the Port. A permanent wharf was constructed from some of the dredged sand in the 1870s. But dredging was repeatedly claimed as costly. Equally, the cyclone of 1862 damaged the extended river mouth groynes, and the British were able to repair them only by 1865. In 1909, experimental groynes erected at a distance from the river mouth were destroyed and washed away further south during the North East monsoon – which the Port Officer describes as “It will be seen by the above that these exposed groynes cannot withstand the fury of the northeast monsoon, and any expenditure on this account will be a waste of money”. (This episode is available in additional languages on Platypus, The CASTAC Blog.)
A Horse in the Archive: Notes on Incompleteness in Biometric Infrastructures
Monday, August 31, 2026 • Duration 22:26.40000000000009
This bonus content is a reading from Platypus, the CASTAC Blog. The full post by kayah can be read at https://blog.castac.org/2026/08/a-horse-in-the-archive-notes-on-incompleteness-in-biometric-infrastructures/. About the post: An essay on incompleteness as a constitutive property of biometric infrastructures. Beginning with the removal of two wisdom teeth — a piece of the body that leaves it once but whose record may keep circulating — it traces how bodies are decomposed into data, archived, and returned to their subjects only in fragments that never quite align. At its center is a speculative biometric archive, built as an interactive component, that enacts this logic directly: records repeat, some accesses are denied, and discovered records decay permanently with use. A horse the system cannot classify — but files anyway — marks the limit of what such an archive can hold. (This episode is available in additional languages on Platypus, The CASTAC Blog.)
“Can You Hear Me Now?”: Listening in China’s Romance Simulation Games
Friday, August 28, 2026 • Duration 14:20.450000000000045
This bonus content is a reading from Platypus, the CASTAC Blog. The full post by Naijia Liu can be read at https://blog.castac.org/2026/08/can-you-hear-me-now-listening-in-chinas-romance-simulation-games/. About the post: Chinese romance games are built to make players feel heard, and the studios behind them promise the same. Drawing on fieldwork among players of China's female-oriented mobile games, this piece follows listening as it slips from a designed intimacy into a demand players make on the companies, and on the worlds these games represent.
The Kids Are AI-right
Wednesday, August 26, 2026 • Duration 08:10.420000000000016
This bonus content is a reading from Platypus, the CASTAC Blog. The full post by Manar Naser can be read at https://blog.castac.org/2026/08/the-kids-are-ai-right/. About the post: My students were actively evaluating AI's role and utility rather than absorbing it uncritically. This complicates the assumption that children are passive recipients of a technological future being built for them. Education policy is actively being shaped by the potential of an education in and conducted by AI rather than considering the students they are pushing this upon
Dispatch from Seoul: Reflections on the Science, Technology & Human Values Science and Technology Studies School, June 2026
Monday, August 24, 2026 • Duration 15:36.23000000000002
This bonus content is a reading from Platypus, the CASTAC Blog. The full post by Lachlan Hensey can be read at https://blog.castac.org/2026/08/dispatch-from-seoul-reflections-on-the-science-technology-human-values-science-and-technology-studies-school-june-2026/. About the post: In June, emerging STS scholars gathered in Seoul to workshop draft manuscripts, encountering charismatic objects and a “concrete fish tank”. In this post, Lachlan Hensey reflects on the 2026 ST&HV STS School: It seems many of us happened upon STS quite unexpectedly, but also gratefully, hesitantly or far later than we now wish. Whatever the case, misfits or meanderers, there we were—in Seoul, ‘doing STS’—evolving a shared language to articulate that which is obscured, tacit, or might be otherwise. And although there is often a hint of deviance, mischief or even alienation that colours the way STS scholars describe and relate to their research contexts—as “tricksters”, perhaps—there are few punchlines or ‘gotcha’ moments among these manuscripts. Instead, the conversations we cultivated throughout the School were characterised by epistemic humility, reflexivity and care.
In the Pensive Pause of Supervision: A Footnote on Citing Santos
Thursday, August 20, 2026 • Duration 17:30.670000000000073
This bonus content is a reading from Platypus, the CASTAC Blog. The full post by Tanu Biswas can be read at https://blog.castac.org/2026/08/in-the-pensive-pause-of-supervision-a-footnote-on-citing-santos/. About the post: Overcoming the separation of ethics, metaphysics (including ontology), epistemology, and aesthetics that is possible in Western philosophical traditions, but not in non-Western traditions, lies at the heart of scientific work aimed at cultivating decolonial methodologies.
From Candle to Dilator: Treating Vaginismus in Turkey
Tuesday, August 18, 2026 • Duration 12:45.34000000000003
This bonus content is a reading from Platypus, the CASTAC Blog. The full post by Neslihan Sen can be read at https://blog.castac.org/2026/08/from-candle-to-dilator-treating-vaginismus-in-turkey/. About the post: Vaginismus as a medical diagnosis, and its associated therapy, give women the legitimacy to experience their bodies and sexualities in a way that was not acceptable before the diagnosis. Sexuality becomes central in these women’s lives. (This episode is available in additional languages on Platypus, The CASTAC Blog.)