Since 2015, the Committee on the Anthropology of Science, Technology, and Computing (CASTAC) has awarded a graduate student paper prize in recognition of excellent work by rising scholars. In 2016 the prize was renamed in honor of the memory of David Hakken, for his pioneering work at the intersection of ethnography and cyberspace.
The prize is awarded to a paper that exemplifies innovative research at the intersection of anthropology and science and technology studies, demonstrating theoretical sophistication and an appreciation of the methodological challenges facing the anthropology of science and technology.
The winner of the prize will be recognized during the AAA meetings and is sponsored by the AAA’s General Anthropology Division. They will also receive written feedback from the Prize Committee’s review of their paper.
2024 Submission Guidelines
- Papers should be blinded, with the author’s name and any implicating citations removed.
- Papers should have numbered pages.
- Papers must be between 7,000 and 8,000 words, not including references.
- Papers must be unpublished and not yet submitted for publication.
- Papers must follow the guidelines for human subjects protocols as outlined by the American Anthropological Association and the author’s institution.
- Submissions must be written during graduate school by current graduate students or recent graduates (no earlier than Spring 2023).
The committee will be unable to consider any paper that does not follow these guidelines.
Submissions must be received using the online submission form by June 15, 2024 at midnight (Central US time) to be considered for this year’s prize. Any questions can be directed to CASTAC Co-Chair Svetlana Borodina at co-chairs@castac.org. The award will be presented at the CASTAC business meeting (date and time to be determined).
For more information about CASTAC, please browse our website. CASTAC also awards the Forsythe Prize, for the best book or series of published articles in the spirit of Diana Forsythe’s feminist anthropological research on work, science, or technology, including biomedicine. For more information on the Forsythe Prize, see the Forsythe Prize page.
2024 Prize Winners
Timothy Y. Loh for “An Expanded Istifada: Cochlear Implants and Regulating Communication for Deaf Jordanians”
The winning paper examines the diagnostic and pedagogical practices of cochlear implant experts working with deaf children in Jordan. Through carefully crafted ethnographic analysis of multi-modal therapeutic dynamics among speech therapists, audiologists, and their patients, the paper reveals the operation of narrow conceptions of language and disability, including the persistence of a speech-centric ethos and a techno-utopic imaginary of implant technologies. The paper pays close attention to paradoxical moments in clinical spaces where such narrow conceptions are reproduced but also contested by patients and their parents. The committee appreciated the rich ethnographic prose accompanied by the well-organized and reader-friendly analytical suggestions, as well as the paper’s synthesis of supporting literature and concepts from linguistic anthropology, STS, and disability studies.
Aaron Su (Hon. Mention) for “The Dilemma of “Self-Sufficiency”: Indigenous Agriculture and the Limits of Scientific Collaboration in Settler-Colonial Taiwan,”
The honorary mention considers contradictory and contested notions of “self-sufficiency” among state agricultural researchers and Indigenous farmers in Taiwan, amid precision-agriculture efforts to promote national food security. Drawing on rich, intentional ethnography among these actors, the paper theorizes the tensions between national agricultural self-sufficiency, advanced through monocropping and productivism, and ecological self-sufficiency advanced through Indigenous agricultural practices. The committee was compelled by the paper’s extensive engagement with literatures around ecological knowledge and agricultural geopolitics, as well as the precise and evocative storytelling through which the paper unfolds.
Previous Prize Winners
2023
Matthew Raj Webb for “Compositing the Body: Ethics of Mediation Among Professional Photographic Retouchers”
Spencer Kaplan (Hon. Mention) for “Facing Blockchain’s Double Bind: Trustless Technologies and “IRL Friends” in Berlin’s NFT Community”
2022
Katie Ulrich for “Redesigning the Substance of Growth: Sugarcane, Biotech, and Sustainable Futures in São Paulo, Brazil”
Adam Fleischmann (Hon. Mention) for “Telecommuting and Remote (Field)work: A Reluctant Neologism for a Time of Climate Change”
2021
Rae Jezera for “I’m not this Person”: Racism, Content Moderators and Protecting and Denying Voice Online
Caroline White-Nockleby (Hon. Mention) for “A resource in and of itself” Grid-scale batteries and the politics of storage
2020
Liliana Gil for “A Fablab in the Periphery: Decentering Innovation from São Paulo”
Jia-Hui Lee (Hon. Mention) for “Rodent Trapping and the Imagination of the Just Possible in Tanzania”
2019
Alexandra Middleton for “The Datafication of Pain: Trials and Tribulations in Measuring Phantom Limb Pain.”
Stephen Paff (Hon. Mention) for “Anthropology by Data Science: The EPIC Project with Indicia Consulting as an Exploratory Case Study.”
2018
Timothy McLellan for “Comparing Theories of Change: The Temporal Transformation of Scientific Practice.”
Laura Meek (Hon. Mention) for “The Grammar of Leprosy: Temporal Politics and an Impossible Subject.”
2017
Nicole Welk-Joerger for “Achieving Eden in the Amish Anthropocene”
Héctor Beltran (Hon. Mention) for “Staging the Hackathon”
2016
Kellie Owens for “Too Much of A Good Thing?: American Childbirth, Intentional Ignorance, and the Boundaries of Responsible Knowledge.”
Shreeharsh Kelkar (Hon. Mention) for “Platformizing Pedagogy: MOOC Infrastructures and the Transformation of Roles.”
2015
Risa Cromer for “Saved: Stem Cell Science, Christian Adoption, and Frozen Embryo Politics in the United States.”
Beth Reddy (Hon. Mention) “Misfires and Missed Opportunities: Personal and Population-Oriented Technologies Interface to Disseminate Mexico’s Earthquake Early Warning System Alerts.”