Platypod, The CASTAC Podcast

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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)

  1. 14H AGO · BONUS

    Transnational Translations: An Interdisciplinary Dialogue on Platforms and Labor

    This bonus content is a reading from Platypus, the CASTAC Blog. The full post by Malcolm Katrak can be read at https://blog.castac.org/2026/02/transnational-translations-an-interdisciplinary-dialogue-on-platforms-and-labor/. About the post: This post is an Interdisciplinary dialog on platforms and labor. We are a group of scholars and researchers who work with gig and platform worker unions in India in various capacities. We form the India chapter of the labor deck research network. We have been meeting regularly from across the globe to share cross-sectoral organizing strategies, track the political landscape around gig and platform movements, and discuss research and reflections from our place-based engagements. Our work sits at the critical intersection of scholarship and activism. It involves amplifying workers’ voices, supporting unionization efforts, and supporting workers in their struggles to lead more dignified and just working lives. Our discussions have inspired us to put together this blog series on the politics of writing about platform workers’ organizing.

  2. FEB 4 · BONUS

    (Seed) Cycling Toward a Crossroads: Menstrual Positivity and Hormone Practices Under Right-Wing Regimes

    This bonus content is a reading from Platypus, the CASTAC Blog. The full post by Anna Wood can be read at https://blog.castac.org/2026/02/seed-cycling-toward-a-crossroads-menstrual-positivity-and-hormone-practices-under-right-wing-regimes/. About the post: A constellation of women’s health advocates, right-wing influencers, and lay experts have helped to proliferate negative information around hormonal contraceptives, including testimonials about side effects and doubts about their safety. This has unfolded alongside a renewed embrace of non-pharmaceutically suppressed menstruation.

  3. JAN 28 · BONUS

    Writing About/With Platform Unions: The Role of Culture, Politics, and History

    This bonus content is a reading from Platypus, the CASTAC Blog. The full post by Ambika Tandon, Debopriya Shome and Kaveri Medappa can be read at https://blog.castac.org/2026/01/writing-about-with-platform-unions-the-role-of-culture-politics-and-history/. About the post: Platform work has exposed larger numbers of workers, especially younger workers with little memory or experience of organising, to mobilise against capital and to do so using innovative means and campaigns. Through three vignettes, we bring the everyday together with the cultural, political histories and contexts of three metropolitan Indian cities – Bengaluru, Delhi and Kolkata, cities in which we have lived and engaged in research and activism with platform workers. Spanning between 2019 and 2025, these vignettes reflect the political landscape in India. They shed light on the capital–state nexus that limits the power of workers, unionization efforts built on foundations of loyalty and often exclusionary hypermasculine politics. What are the tensions and contradictions that we confronted while doing research with ‘gig’ worker unions? To inhabit that space in between is to acknowledge t

  4. 12/19/2025 · BONUS

    The Lung Tumor We Know Exists Yet That We Cannot See

    This bonus content is a reading from Platypus, the CASTAC Blog. The full post by Chen Shen can be read at https://blog.castac.org/2025/12/the-lung-tumor-we-know-exists-yet-that-we-cannot-see/. About the post: “The lung tumor we know exists yet that we cannot see” is a found footage essay film that assembles publicly available medical materials and original footage to explore how lung cancer is rendered visible—and remains invisible—through clinical regimes, and to reflect on how visibility operates as an epistemic practice that might be mobilized otherwise.

  5. 12/17/2025 · BONUS

    What Not To Do If You Are Accused Of Harassment: The Case Of Boaventura de Souza Santos

    This bonus content is a reading from Platypus, the CASTAC Blog. The full post by Daniela Manica and Fabiene Gama can be read at https://blog.castac.org/2025/12/what-not-to-do-if-you-are-accused-of-harassment-the-case-of-boaventura-de-souza-santos/. About the post: In this text, we intend to revisit the well-known case of the Portuguese sociologist Boaventura de Souza Santos, following its unfolding since the accusations that surfaced after the publication of this book "Sexual Misconduct in Academia" in 2023. We summarize the main events since then, focusing on developing a counter-manual that didactically organizes the regrettable way in which the intellectual responded to the accusations and systematically retaliated against the victims. (This episode is available in additional languages on Platypus, The CASTAC Blog.)

  6. 12/16/2025 · BONUS

    From the ‘Grid’ to the ‘Field’: Visualizing the Chipscene

    This bonus content is a reading from Platypus, the CASTAC Blog. The full post by Marilou Polymeropoulou can be read at https://blog.castac.org/2025/12/from-the-grid-to-the-field-visualizing-the-chipscene/. About the post: I was introduced to chipmusic and its scene: online communities, netlabels, visual performers, musicians and sound artists, a whole network of creatives which would often physically materializse in events across the world, such as Error Code. That night I returned home and went straight online on my computer to catch a glimpse of the chipscene: 8-bit graphics and sounds flooded my brain and I started wondering what does the chipscene world look like – both online and offline. Years later, I recognizsed the feeling of wanting to explore the digital social in Flynn’s words: what does the chipscene ‘grid’ look like and how can I get in?

  7. 12/12/2025 · BONUS

    Touch to Make: An Index Finger’s Path into the Sculpture Factories in China

    This bonus content is a reading from Platypus, the CASTAC Blog. The full post by Renee Yu Jin can be read at https://blog.castac.org/2025/12/touch-to-make-an-index-fingers-path-into-the-sculpture-factories-in-china/. About the post: How do digital platforms reconfigure the ways we come to know sites of artistic labor before we ever enter the workshops? What began as a simple search for sculpture factories near Beijing became an encounter with how algorithmic recommendation, platform aesthetics, and factory self-promotion organize visibility for contemporary sculpture production. As clips foreground technological capability and optimized workflows while workers remain partially obscured, a layered form of mediation emerges, one that frames the factory as a digital formation long before it becomes a physical place. Tracing how my own scrolling shaped this encounter, this piece examines how touch, vision, and labor move across screens and shop floors, revealing how digital circulation both illuminates and abstracts the embodied work of sculpture making in China.

  8. 11/26/2025 · BONUS

    Doing Research Between Adolescence and Cyborgs

    This bonus content is a reading from Platypus, the CASTAC Blog. The full post by Irene do Planalto Chemin, Geovana Luna dos Santos, Kauan Alves da Silveira Aristides, Raylane Souza de Moura, Samara Lopes de Oliveira and Veronica Martins Da Silva can be read at https://blog.castac.org/2025/11/doing-research-between-adolescence-and-cyborgs/. About the post: Cyborgs and adolescence have historically coexisted and have a love-hate relationship. Daily connected, their bodies inhabiting poorly demarcated boundaries between online and the offline. (This episode is available in additional languages on Platypus, The CASTAC Blog.)

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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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