Editorial introduction: Towards a machinic anthropology
Bringing together a motley crew of social scientists and data scientists, the aim of this special theme issue is to explore what an integration or even fusion between anthropology and data science might look like. Going beyond existing work on the complementarity between ‘thick’ qualitative and ‘big...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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SAGE Publishing
2023-01-01
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| Series: | Big Data & Society |
| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1177/20539517231153803 |
| _version_ | 1811159504794943488 |
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| author | Morten Axel Pedersen |
| author_facet | Morten Axel Pedersen |
| author_sort | Morten Axel Pedersen |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Bringing together a motley crew of social scientists and data scientists, the aim of this special theme issue is to explore what an integration or even fusion between anthropology and data science might look like. Going beyond existing work on the complementarity between ‘thick’ qualitative and ‘big’ quantitative data, the ambition is to unsettle and push established disciplinary, methodological and epistemological boundaries by creatively and critically probing various computational methods for augmenting and automatizing the collection, processing and analysis of ethnographic data, and vice versa. Can ethnographic and other qualitative data and methods be integrated with natural language processing tools and other machine-learning techniques, and if so, to what effect? Does the rise of data science allow for the realization of Levi-Strauss’ old dream of a computational structuralism, and even if so, should it? Might one even go as far as saying that computers are now becoming agents of social scientific analysis or even thinking: are we about to witness the birth of distinctly anthropological forms of artificial intelligence? By exploring these questions, the hope is not only to introduce scholars and students to computational anthropological methods, but also to disrupt predominant norms and assumptions among computational social scientists and data science writ large. |
| first_indexed | 2024-04-10T05:42:20Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-983c056965334a1d893a0081d7bf16e3 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2053-9517 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-04-10T05:42:20Z |
| publishDate | 2023-01-01 |
| publisher | SAGE Publishing |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Big Data & Society |
| spelling | doaj.art-983c056965334a1d893a0081d7bf16e32023-03-06T08:03:25ZengSAGE PublishingBig Data & Society2053-95172023-01-011010.1177/20539517231153803Editorial introduction: Towards a machinic anthropologyMorten Axel PedersenBringing together a motley crew of social scientists and data scientists, the aim of this special theme issue is to explore what an integration or even fusion between anthropology and data science might look like. Going beyond existing work on the complementarity between ‘thick’ qualitative and ‘big’ quantitative data, the ambition is to unsettle and push established disciplinary, methodological and epistemological boundaries by creatively and critically probing various computational methods for augmenting and automatizing the collection, processing and analysis of ethnographic data, and vice versa. Can ethnographic and other qualitative data and methods be integrated with natural language processing tools and other machine-learning techniques, and if so, to what effect? Does the rise of data science allow for the realization of Levi-Strauss’ old dream of a computational structuralism, and even if so, should it? Might one even go as far as saying that computers are now becoming agents of social scientific analysis or even thinking: are we about to witness the birth of distinctly anthropological forms of artificial intelligence? By exploring these questions, the hope is not only to introduce scholars and students to computational anthropological methods, but also to disrupt predominant norms and assumptions among computational social scientists and data science writ large.https://doi.org/10.1177/20539517231153803 |
| spellingShingle | Morten Axel Pedersen Editorial introduction: Towards a machinic anthropology Big Data & Society |
| title | Editorial introduction: Towards a machinic anthropology |
| title_full | Editorial introduction: Towards a machinic anthropology |
| title_fullStr | Editorial introduction: Towards a machinic anthropology |
| title_full_unstemmed | Editorial introduction: Towards a machinic anthropology |
| title_short | Editorial introduction: Towards a machinic anthropology |
| title_sort | editorial introduction towards a machinic anthropology |
| url | https://doi.org/10.1177/20539517231153803 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT mortenaxelpedersen editorialintroductiontowardsamachinicanthropology |