Economies of Tech (BOA)

With new forms of technologies have come new ways of valuing people, things, practices, and ideas. From data-driven credit-ratings impacting people’s chance of a mortgage, to platforms monetizing attention in our digital dealings, the intersection of technology and economy has significant implications for people across the world. Popular documentaries and books point to the way economies in/of technologies have also become matters of public concern. The initial optimism and hype of algorithms, AI, and ‘free’ data is matched by skepticism for the ways that new forms of digital technologies seem instead to increase the wealth and power of a select few, on the one hand, and increase surveillance and control for many, on the other. With these new technologies we must take into account powerful new actors such as tech-corporations, platforms, algorithms, and big data that shape the playing ground for our future society.

Anthropologists and social scientists from adjacent disciplines have the potential to contribute to both academic and public debates regarding these concerns by engaging both critically and productively with the way that technology is shaping society and making specific assertions about what is “of value”. At the same time, it is equally important to reflect on the possibilities for alternative tech economies, and how new technologies can support and facilitate living and thriving “otherwise”. This course aims to equip students with knowledge, skills, and competencies to engage with the current developments in tech by building on classical as well as current theoretical perspectives from fields including economic and digital anthropology, sociology, and science and technology studies (STS).

The course begins with a historical perspective on the development of current economic and tech-structures and the ways in which anthropologists have analyzed these developments. It then examines types of tech economies and forms of valuation, considering topics such as opensource, sharing economies, and surveillance capitalism. The final part of the course focuses on various actors, effects and frictions in tech economies, considering the role of entrepreneurship, forms of inequality tied to tech, and the possibilities and challenges for alternative digital economies. Throughout lectures and discussion we will explore how data, AI, platforms and other technology actors shape economic practices today and how we might begin to imagine alternatives. Activities in the course include group discussions, exercises, debates, and group presentations. Students will develop their own argument about the changing economies of tech during the course using an empirical case. Students will have the opportunity to submit a topic proposal (max 4 pages) for peer feedback and their case for feedback at a workshop, before writing the final essay.