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Cyborg anthropology is a discipline that studies the interaction between humanity and technology from an anthropological perspective. The discipline is relatively new, but offers novel insights on new technological advances and their effect on culture and society.

History

Donna Haraway’s 1985 ""A Cyborg Manifesto" was the first widely-read academic text to explore the philosophical and sociological ramifications of the cyborg.^[1] A sub-focus group within the American Anthropological Association's annual meeting in 1992 presented a paper entitled "Cyborg Anthropology", which cites Haraway's "Manifesto". The group described cyborg anthropology as the study of how humans define humanness in relationship to machines, as well as the study of science and technology as activities that can shape and be shaped by culture. This includes studying the ways that all people, including those who are not scientific experts, talk about and conceptualize technology.^[2] The sub-group was very closely related to STS and the Society for the Social Studies of Science.^[3] More recently, Amber Case has been responsible for explicating the concept of Cyborg Anthropology to the general public.^[4] She believes that a key aspect of cyborg anthropology is the study of networks of information among humans and technology.^[5]

Many academics have helped develop cyborg anthropology, and many more who haven't heard the term still conduct research that may be considered cyborg anthropology. Amber Case likes to tell people that the actual number of self-described cyborg anthropologists is "about seven".^[6] The Cyborg Anthropology Wiki, overseen by Case, aims to make the discipline as accessible as possible, even to people who do not have a background in anthropology.

Methodology

Cyborg anthropology uses traditional methods of anthropological research like ethnography and participant observation, accompanied by statistics, historical research, and interviews. By nature it is a multidisciplinary study; cyborg anthropology can include aspects of Science and Technology Studies, cybernetics, feminist theory, and more.

The cyborg

The object of study for cyborg anthropology is the cyborg. Originally coined in a 1960 paper about space exploration, the term is short for cybernetic organism.^[7] A cyborg is traditionally defined as a system with both organic and inorganic parts. In the narrowest sense of the word, cyborgs are people with machinated body parts. These cyborg parts may be restorative technologies that help a body function where the organic system has failed, like pacemakers, insulin pumps, and bionic limbs, or enhanced technologies that improve the human body beyond its natural state.^[8] In the broadest sense, all human interactions with technology could qualify as a cyborg. Most cyborg anthropologists lean towards the latter view of the cyborg; some, like Amber Case, even claim that humans are already cyborgs because people's daily life and sense of self is so intertwined with technology.^[5] Haraway's "Cyborg Manifesto" suggests that technology like virtual avatars, artificial insemination, sexual reassignment surgery, and artificial intelligence might make dichotomies of sex and gender irrelevant, even nonexistent. She goes on to say that other human distinctions (like life and death, human and machine, virtual and real) may similarly disappear in the wake of the cyborg.^[1]

Digital vs. Cyborg Anthropology

Digital anthropology is concerned with how digital advances are changing how people live their lives, as well as consequent changes to how anthropologists do ethnography and to a lesser extent how digital technology can be used to represent and undertake research.^[9] Cyborg anthropology also looks at disciplines like genetics and nanotechnology, which are not strictly digital. Cybernetics/informatics covers the range of cyborg advances better than the label digital.

Key concepts and research

Actor–network theory

Questions of subjectivity, agency, actors, and structures have always been of interest in social and cultural anthropology. In cyborg anthropology the question of what type of cybernetic system constitutes an actor/subject becomes all the more important. Is it the actual technology that acts on humanity (the Internet), the general techno-culture (Silicon Valley), government sanctions (net neutrality), specific innovative humans (Steve Jobs), or some type of combination of these elements? Some academics believe that only humans have agency and technology is an object humans act upon, while others argue that humans have no agency and culture is entirely shaped by material and technological conditions. Actor-network theory (ANT), proposed by Bruno Latour, is a theory that helps scholars understand how these elements work together to shape techno-cultural phenomena. Latour suggests that actors and the subjects they act on are parts of larger networks of mutual interaction and feedback loops. Humans and technology both have the agency to shape one another.^[10] ANT best describes the way cyborg anthropology approaches the relationship between humans and technology.^[11]

Artificial Intelligence

Researchers like Kathleen Richardson have conducted ethnographic research on the humans who build and interact with artificial intelligence.^[12] Recently, Stuart Geiger, a PhD student at University of California, Berkeley suggested that robots may be capable of creating a culture of their own, which researchers could study with ethnographic methods. Anthropologists react to Geiger with skepticism because, according to Geiger, they believe that culture is specific to living creatures and ethnography limited to human subjects.^[13]

Posthumanism

The most basic definition of anthropology is the study of humans.^[14] However, cyborgs, by definition, describe something that is not entirely an organic human. Moreover, limiting a discipline to the study of humans may be difficult the more that technology allows humans to transcend the normal conditions of organic life. The prospect of a posthuman condition calls in to question the nature and necessity of a field focused on studying humans.

Techno-sociologist Zeynep Tufekci argues that any symbolic expression of ourselves, even the most ancient cave painting, can be considered "posthuman" because it exists outside of our physical bodies. To her, this means that the human and the "posthuman" have always existed alongside one another, and anthropology has always concerned itself with the posthuman as well as the human.^[15] Neil L. Whitehead and Michael Welsch point out that the concern that posthumanism will decenter the human in anthropology ignores the discipline's long history of engaging with the unhuman (like spirits and demons that humans believe in) and the culturally "subhuman" (like marginalized groups within a society).^[15]

Notable Figures

References

^ ^a ^b Haraway, Donna (2000). "A Cyborg Manifesto". In Bell, David; Kennedy, Barbara (eds.). The Cybercultures Reader. Routledge. pp. 291–324. ISBN 0-415-18378-2 – via Georgetown University Online.
^ Downey, Gary Lee; Dumit, Joseph; Williams, Sarah (1995). "Cyborg Anthropology". Cultural Anthropology. 10: 264–269 – via Wiley Online Library.
^ Dumit, Joseph. Davis-Floyd, Robbie. Cyborg Anthropology. Routledge International Encyclopedia of Women, 2001
^ http://www.nationalgeographic.com/explorers/bios/amber-case/
^ ^a ^b Case, Amber (2014). An Illustrated Dictionary of Cyborg Anthropology. p. 9. ISBN 978-1494773519.
^ "Robots, Robots, Everywhere – A Field Guide to Cyborg Anthropology | The World is not a desktop". caseorganic.com. Retrieved 2017-01-31.
^ "Cyborgs and Space," in Astronautics (September 1960), by Manfred E. Clynes and Nathan S. Kline.
^ Gray, Chris Hables, ed. (1995). The Cyborg Handbook. New York: Routledge.
^ Thompson, Matt (2012-03-22). "Digital Anthropology Group Is Happening Now". Savage Minds. Retrieved 2017-01-31.
^ Latour, Bruno (2005). Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network Theory. Oxford University Press.
^ "Defining Cyborg Anthropology - Cyborg Anthropology". cyborganthropology.com. Retrieved 2017-01-31.
^ Richardson, Kathleen (2015). An Anthropology of Robots and AI: Annihilation Anxiety and Machines. Routledge. ISBN 978-1138831742.
^ Ford, Heather (2012-01-15). "The ethnography of robots". Ethnography Matters.
^ "American Anthropological Association". www.americananthro.org. Retrieved 2017-01-31.
^ ^a ^b Whitehead, Neil L.; Wesch, Michael (2012). Human No More? Digital Subjectivities, Unhuman Subjects, and the End of Anthropology. Boulder: University Press of Colorado. pp. 1–21. ISBN 978-1-60732-170-5.

v t e Science and technology studies
Economics	Economics of science Economics of scientific knowledge
History	History and philosophy of science History of science and technology History of technology
Philosophy	Anthropocene Antipositivism Empiricism Fuzzy logic Neo-Luddism Philosophy of science Philosophy of social science Philosophy of technology Positivism Postpositivism Religion and science Scientism Social constructivism Social epistemology Transhumanism
Sociology	Actor–network theory Social construction of technology shaping of technology Sociology of knowledge scientific Sociology of scientific ignorance Sociology of the history of science Sociotechnology Strong programme
Science studies	Antiscience Bibliometrics Boundary-work Consilience Criticism of science Demarcation problem Double hermeneutic Logology Mapping controversies Metascience Paradigm shift black swan events Pseudoscience Psychology of science Science citizen communication education normal Neo-colonial post-normal rhetoric wars Scientific community consensus controversy dissent enterprise literacy method misconduct priority skepticism Scientocracy Scientometrics Team science Traditional knowledge ecological Unity of science Women in science STEM
Technology studies	Co-production Cyborg anthropology Design studies Dematerialization Digital anthropology Digital media use and mental health Early adopter Engineering studies Financial technology Hype cycle Innovation diffusion disruptive linear model system user Leapfrogging Normalization process theory Media studies Reverse salient Skunkworks project Sociotechnical system Technical change Technocracy Technoscience feminist Technological change convergence determinism revolution transitions Technology and society criticism of dynamics theories of transfer Women in engineering
Policy	Academic freedom Digital divide Evidence-based policy Factor 10 Funding of science Horizon scanning Politicization of science Regulation of science Research ethics Right to science Science policy history of science of Technology assessment Technology policy Transition management
Portals Science History of science Technology Category Associations Journals Scholars

v t e Bruno Latour
Works	Laboratory Life (1979) The Pasteurization of France (1984) Science in Action (1987) We Have Never Been Modern (1991) Aramis, or the Love of Technology (1992) "The Berlin Key" (1993) Politics of Nature (1999)
Concepts	Actor–network theory Blackboxing Graphism thesis Mapping controversies Oligopticon Translation (sociology)