Scholar of infrastructure & labor in publishing; Principal of Forthcoming LLC, a publishing consultancy; Digital explorer–analog sailor; @timelfen@assemblag.es
Jul 20, 2021 • 12 tweets • 5 min read
If I were to pick one constantly reiterated assertion that has done the most to limit anthropologists' understanding of publishing, or of what it might take to pursue different models or forms of publishing, it's this one. #anthrotwitter
Wiley doesn't just profit: the majority of that profit goes back to the AAA & its sections, which in turn funds some of the editorial labor & other activities. Wiley is also undertaking the work of making scholarship readable, findable, placed in a particular info system, etc.
Apr 9, 2021 • 21 tweets • 5 min read
OK, some summary & commentary on this article, coming from an anthropological-inflected point-of-view (amongst, but not quite of, the anthros, if you will).
Murphy, @jerolmack, & @DeAnnaYSmith are trying to understand how critiques of ethnography—from its representational fidelity to the power-laden relations between researchers & subjects—intersect w/ new data gathering & sharing technologies, & the effects of online social life.
Apr 8, 2021 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
Do anthropologists know they are not all that helpful in this definitional debate over "infrastructure"? Like the politicos arguing for a minimalist definition, anthros (for the most part) have relied on the same extensional strategy: what (now/former) public works are included?
This makes it difficult to see beyond the usual suspects: especially bridges, roads, pipes, dams, reaching out to privatized cables, power & communication grids, etc. The political opponents of Biden's infrastructure plan are also relying on this sense of what the term covers.
Aug 10, 2018 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
I've been keeping tabs on @Metadata2020, a cross-sector standards-setting & best-practices initiative. Important work. That said, I'm fascinated by the rhetoric employed to explain it. +
We've never had (or will have) complete, open, interoperable metadata. Research is not being stymied. More widely shared metadata standards & practices, by whatever degree, will help *enable* research. To say it is being stymied is to assume the world of the regulative ideal. +
