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X-WR-CALNAME:Landfill\, Platform\, Diagnosis: How People in Crisis Use Scie
 nce and Technology to Build New Ethical Worlds
X-WR-TIMEZONE:Eastern Time (US & Canada)
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20261012T161642Z
UID:tag:localist.com\,2008:EventInstance_50755925337570
DTSTART:20251027T200000Z
DTEND:20251027T213000Z
DESCRIPTION:The Program in Science\, Technology\, and Society invites you t
 o the annual Arthur Miller Lecture in Science and Ethics on Monday\, Octob
 er 27th from 4:00-5:30 pm in the MIT Welcome Center\, featuring Sophia Sta
 matopoulou-Robbins\, anthropologist and associate Professor at Bard Univer
 sity\, as she speaks about her research into the intersection of waste\, t
 he environment\, capitalism\, and the concept of home.\n\nLandfill\, Platf
 orm\, Diagnosis: How People in Crisis Use Science and Technology to Build 
 New Ethical Worlds\n\nDuress—whether it be ecocide\, economic collapse\,
  or disability—is usually experienced as a limiting of options. The logi
 c of necessity intensifies the imperative to merely survive\, and people
 ’s choices appear to narrow to violence or solidarity. Stamatopoulou-Rob
 bin’s first book on waste and its infrastructures in Palestine\, as well
  as her current book on platform-mediated home-sharing in Greece\, challen
 ge these declensionist narratives of crisis. They show how people respond 
 inventively to the material necessities of duress and the material afforda
 nces of technology and science. They respond in ways that may not make dur
 ess go away\, but rather remake how it works in their lives. \n\nScience a
 nd technology are not in and of themselves solutions to the political prob
 lems that generate duress. Yet when people tinker with them\, they reshape
  the ethical contours of their worlds in unexpected ways. This talk tells 
 stories of old technologies (a landfill in Palestine)\, a newly dominant p
 latform (Airbnb in Athens)\, and efforts to establish a future diagnosis i
 n the U.S. (an autism profile called “pathological demand avoidance”) 
 to consider the unpredictable place of science and technology in dark time
 s.\n\nAbout Sophia Stamatopoulou-Robbins\n\nSophia Stamatopoulou-Robbins i
 s a New York-based anthropologist and Associate Professor of Anthropology 
 at Bard College with interests in infrastructure\, waste\, the environment
 \, platform capitalism\, the home\, and neurodivergence. She is the author
  of Waste Siege: The Life of Infrastructure in Palestine (Stanford Univers
 ity Press\, 2019). Her current book\, De/tachment: Airbnb in Athens\, is u
 nder contract with Duke University Press. She is beginning fieldwork on he
 r next project on the rise of "demand avoidance" as a diagnosis and lived 
 experience for autistic people. She has served on the editorial teams of M
 ERIP\, Cultural Anthropology and Critical AI. More on her scholarship and 
 films can be found here:\n\n https://sophiastamatopoulourobbins.com\n\nPle
 ase RSVP here if you plan to attend in-person\, we hope to see you there!
GEO:42.362198;-71.086056
LOCATION:MIT Welcome Center
SUMMARY:Landfill\, Platform\, Diagnosis: How People in Crisis Use Science a
 nd Technology to Build New Ethical Worlds
URL;VALUE=URI:https://calendar.mit.edu/event/landfill-platform-diagnosis-ho
 w-people-in-crisis-use-science-and-technology-to-build-new-ethical-worlds
CATEGORIES:Conferences/Seminars/Lectures
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