The Ludwig-Uhland-Institut in Tübingen invites you to a bilingual conference (German/English) on “Translating Digital Transformation: Reflections on the Relevance of Anthropological Knowledge in Digital Societies” from February 28 to March 2, 2023.
The introduction of new digital technologies is rarely without friction, and the cultural and emotional transformation they cause often leads to conflict-laden negotiations. How do we want to live together in a world entangled in digital technologies? The field of cultural anthropology – digital anthropology in particular – is uniquely qualified to analyze how society navigates the tensions engendered by digital transformation and to translate the meaning of digitalization into a form that is intelligible to non-specialists. In this regard, it understands its function as explanatory rather than evaluative. Instead of making value judgments about the worth of particular digital technologies, it seeks to make everyday interdependencies between people and digital technologies comprehensible for those to whom they seem alien. But is cultural anthropology doing enough? Is its analysis of digital transformation and the attendant processes of negotiation societally relevant? What can be achieved, outside as well as inside academia, by shedding light on the interrelations between digital technologies and everyday life in certain cultural arenas? What kind of debates does cultural anthropology want to help forge?
The bilingual conference “Translating Digital Transformation” was conceived to address those questions and invites researchers working in the field of cultural anthropology to join our discussion. We are looking forward to read your contributions (in German or English, 2000 characters, short CV) until September 30, 2022, which you can send to tagung@lui.uni-tuebingen.de
Further information can be found here.