http://www.powells.com/biblio/1-9780312877156-0 Last night, I turned the pages of Steven Gould's 7th Sigma--basically a cyberpunk Western set in the arid hills of New Mexico. For me, on Day 4 of no power in post-Hurricane Irene Baltimore, the words flickered in the candlelight and the novel seemed entirely appropriate. In particular, the cyberpunk/steampunk mash-up of pre-industrial technologies with advanced IT--since I was simultaneously checking news and email on an iPhone. Gould's novel, though, is interesting even if you don't live in a area recovering from a natural disaster. We do not live in a world where technological and economic development move in lock-step. In fact, just the opposite--vast swathes of the planet are locked into miserable underdevelopment; other zones explode into hyperdevelopment. We are used to thinking about a "digital divide" that tracks closely along other forms of inequality: race, class, nationality, ethnicity. B...
Occasional posts on anthropologically interesting science fiction, anthropological futures and my own future as an anthropologist.