HASTAC Commons | Ilana Gershon | Activity https://hastac.hcommons.org/members/igershon/activity/ Activity feed for Ilana Gershon. Sat, 04 Apr 2026 20:10:27 +0000 https://buddypress.org/?v=10.6.0 en-US 30 hourly 2 b42e62e8019a334919befc02c615a4d6 Ilana Gershon deposited Reflecting on/for better worlds https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1884196/ Sun, 28 Apr 2024 16:12:11 +0000 How does attention to porous social orders shape the ways in which people might analyze prefigurative politics? This article compares the ways computer programming shapes coders’ reflexive imagination and how the legal system shapes legal activists’ strategies.

]]> 0 ac269ea3eb503795b9acb90e9fa7fb02 Ilana Gershon deposited Bullshit Genres: What to Watch For When Studying the New Actant ChatGPT and Its Siblings. in the group Labor Studies https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1861362/ Wed, 11 Oct 2023 03:00:07 +0000 I lay out what I believe ethnographers of AI who engage with large language models (LLMs) might want to pay attention to in the next couple of years.
My starting point is that it would be helpful to explore how people are responding to ChatGPT in terms of genre, that people’s reactions to ChatGPT is to treat it at its core as though it is a g…[Read more]

]]> 0 4119c833a2a5f3ecca747e00f8704fec Ilana Gershon deposited Bullshit Genres: What to Watch For When Studying the New Actant ChatGPT and Its Siblings. in the group Anthropology https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1861361/ Wed, 11 Oct 2023 03:00:02 +0000 I lay out what I believe ethnographers of AI who engage with large language models (LLMs) might want to pay attention to in the next couple of years.
My starting point is that it would be helpful to explore how people are responding to ChatGPT in terms of genre, that people’s reactions to ChatGPT is to treat it at its core as though it is a g…[Read more]

]]> 0 c41d003ddec8ed6cc1d8ac8a68b5b493 Ilana Gershon deposited Bullshit Genres: What to Watch For When Studying the New Actant ChatGPT and Its Siblings. https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1861304/ Tue, 10 Oct 2023 14:50:39 +0000 I lay out what I believe ethnographers of AI who engage with large language models (LLMs) might want to pay attention to in the next couple of years.
My starting point is that it would be helpful to explore how people are responding to ChatGPT in terms of genre, that people’s reactions to ChatGPT is to treat it at its core as though it is a g…[Read more]

]]> 0 f798a7f0e1220c67b84304dad302f507 Ilana Gershon deposited Reflective Conversation: Revisiting and Revitalizing Ethnographies of Legislatures in the group Anthropology https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1860108/ Fri, 29 Sep 2023 03:01:00 +0000 This year marks the tenth anniversary of PoLAR‘s publication of Ilana Gershon’s “Critical Review Essay: Studying Cultural Pluralism in Courts versus Legislatures.” This essay serves as a foundation for this conversation about anthropology’s interventions into legislative studies more broadly. Gershon’s argument that anything and anyone can…[Read more]

]]> 0 8e73c912b992a7abd667d95797a14f68 Ilana Gershon deposited Hello to Tristes Tropes in the group Labor Studies https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1860107/ Fri, 29 Sep 2023 03:00:56 +0000 Just how bleak is the academic job market for anthropologists? Job ads over the past twenty years reveal some surprises and point to ways departments are seeking to change themselves and the discipline

]]> 0 134767a86ca04afdc72e325107e0d304 Ilana Gershon deposited Hello to Tristes Tropes in the group Anthropology https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1860106/ Fri, 29 Sep 2023 03:00:54 +0000 Just how bleak is the academic job market for anthropologists? Job ads over the past twenty years reveal some surprises and point to ways departments are seeking to change themselves and the discipline

]]> 0 bc6f363f330c59b6c57cc36a174a636d Ilana Gershon deposited Zoom is the least of our problems in the group Anthropology https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1860105/ Fri, 29 Sep 2023 03:00:51 +0000 Zoom is the least of our problems

]]> 0 0cd85dae2661cef2a6822b1829237fb9 Ilana Gershon deposited Trump Gives Fascism a Bad Name in the group Anthropology https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1860104/ Fri, 29 Sep 2023 03:00:48 +0000 Trump Gives Fascism a Bad Name

]]> 0 e77e2c1edf36d365e9c71b24154686b7 Ilana Gershon deposited Pyramid Scheme. #hautalk in the group Labor Studies https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1860103/ Fri, 29 Sep 2023 03:00:44 +0000 Pyramid Scheme. #hautalk

]]> 0 1fced22a26c77edb65f5c851125cf02c Ilana Gershon deposited Pyramid Scheme. #hautalk in the group Anthropology https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1860102/ Fri, 29 Sep 2023 03:00:42 +0000 Pyramid Scheme. #hautalk

]]> 0 a26974b9036e4d56345dfb5a5b0d17ab Ilana Gershon deposited Studying Humanities Teaches You How to Get a Job in the group Labor Studies https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1860101/ Fri, 29 Sep 2023 03:00:38 +0000 Forget the tut-tutting of politicians: The skills you learn in the humanities are exactly the skills you use in a job search.

]]> 0 b0940a7398cec7669e9710029915d8f9 Ilana Gershon deposited Studying Humanities Teaches You How to Get a Job in the group Anthropology https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1860100/ Fri, 29 Sep 2023 03:00:36 +0000 Forget the tut-tutting of politicians: The skills you learn in the humanities are exactly the skills you use in a job search.

]]> 0 11a6cb4e55de5d554c2cd7c7999cf281 Ilana Gershon deposited The quitting economy in the group Labor Studies https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1860099/ Fri, 29 Sep 2023 03:00:31 +0000 The quitting economy

]]> 0 37960cbc24326e7d39db0667be6f9704 Ilana Gershon deposited The quitting economy in the group Anthropology https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1860098/ Fri, 29 Sep 2023 03:00:29 +0000 The quitting economy

]]> 0 7d19ed7aa15428a252ded6236a31a155 Ilana Gershon deposited “A Friend of a Friend” Is No Longer the Best Way to Find a Job in the group Labor Studies https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1860097/ Fri, 29 Sep 2023 03:00:25 +0000 “A Friend of a Friend” Is No Longer the Best Way to Find a Job

]]> 0 807a349f8528f58f7d2905db210ff6b9 Ilana Gershon deposited “A Friend of a Friend” Is No Longer the Best Way to Find a Job in the group Anthropology https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1860096/ Fri, 29 Sep 2023 03:00:22 +0000 “A Friend of a Friend” Is No Longer the Best Way to Find a Job

]]> 0 98852dd7bca2ac27d65b30a5892ee2d2 Ilana Gershon deposited Job Search 101: Debunking 5 Popular Myths that No Longer Apply in the group Anthropology https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1860095/ Fri, 29 Sep 2023 03:00:20 +0000 Job Search 101: Debunking 5 Popular Myths that No Longer Apply

]]> 0 a968a9d4b711eb3506c98fed97aaa4cd Ilana Gershon deposited Don’t Post So Close To Me in the group Anthropology https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1860094/ Fri, 29 Sep 2023 03:00:15 +0000 Don’t Post So Close To Me

]]> 0 bb60eae4dd05eaa98cb5d8ba9e8df6d5 Ilana Gershon deposited Reflective Conversation: Revisiting and Revitalizing Ethnographies of Legislatures https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1860070/ Thu, 28 Sep 2023 19:59:06 +0000 This year marks the tenth anniversary of PoLAR‘s publication of Ilana Gershon’s “Critical Review Essay: Studying Cultural Pluralism in Courts versus Legislatures.” This essay serves as a foundation for this conversation about anthropology’s interventions into legislative studies more broadly. Gershon’s argument that anything and anyone can…[Read more]

]]> 0 4eda35095574e51cff185979ccfe1e12 Ilana Gershon deposited Hello to Tristes Tropes https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1860068/ Thu, 28 Sep 2023 19:56:20 +0000 Just how bleak is the academic job market for anthropologists? Job ads over the past twenty years reveal some surprises and point to ways departments are seeking to change themselves and the discipline

]]> 0 08cb4490db4a9f514e5ba646bec626df Ilana Gershon deposited Zoom is the least of our problems https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1860065/ Thu, 28 Sep 2023 19:49:39 +0000 Zoom is the least of our problems

]]> 0 c89a488b847115288ae7c08e746def4b Ilana Gershon deposited Trump Gives Fascism a Bad Name https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1860064/ Thu, 28 Sep 2023 19:47:43 +0000 Trump Gives Fascism a Bad Name

]]> 0 7cc26a2b315f0104fe44419188317d75 Ilana Gershon deposited Pyramid Scheme. #hautalk https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1860061/ Thu, 28 Sep 2023 19:43:19 +0000 Pyramid Scheme. #hautalk

]]> 0 c878608f9abeeab1973f3cf4531dff0e Ilana Gershon deposited Studying Humanities Teaches You How to Get a Job https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1860060/ Thu, 28 Sep 2023 19:40:56 +0000 Forget the tut-tutting of politicians: The skills you learn in the humanities are exactly the skills you use in a job search.

]]> 0 9a70527e5ec50183d4bfeac5e6f05c73 Ilana Gershon deposited The quitting economy https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1860059/ Thu, 28 Sep 2023 19:38:08 +0000 The quitting economy

]]> 0 c8691f786396e8d532ce565308148367 Ilana Gershon deposited “A Friend of a Friend” Is No Longer the Best Way to Find a Job https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1860058/ Thu, 28 Sep 2023 19:36:17 +0000 “A Friend of a Friend” Is No Longer the Best Way to Find a Job

]]> 0 dc748ea56805fa3e35fd79147d446778 Ilana Gershon deposited Job Search 101: Debunking 5 Popular Myths that No Longer Apply https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1860057/ Thu, 28 Sep 2023 19:34:23 +0000 Job Search 101: Debunking 5 Popular Myths that No Longer Apply

]]> 0 e55d313289fae46156238abb390d634b Ilana Gershon deposited Don’t Post So Close To Me https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1860056/ Thu, 28 Sep 2023 19:30:07 +0000 Don’t Post So Close To Me

]]> 0 dbd2093d457ad1f516169b86c003cfa0 Ilana Gershon deposited Plague Jobs: US Schismogenetic Approaches to Social Contracts in the group Labor Studies https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1856719/ Mon, 28 Aug 2023 01:11:11 +0000 In this homage to David Graeber, I turn to Americans’ experiences working in person during the pandemic as an ethnographic lens for understanding how workers respond when implicit social contracts are violated and when ideas about the common good are being contested. Because the United States federal government and many state governments refused t…[Read more]

]]> 0 426fb8a1372e62468d6e65668aedf22b Ilana Gershon deposited Plague Jobs: US Schismogenetic Approaches to Social Contracts in the group Anthropology https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1856718/ Mon, 28 Aug 2023 01:11:09 +0000 In this homage to David Graeber, I turn to Americans’ experiences working in person during the pandemic as an ethnographic lens for understanding how workers respond when implicit social contracts are violated and when ideas about the common good are being contested. Because the United States federal government and many state governments refused t…[Read more]

]]> 0 540088612a9ac6c7dd338e4ce42434b4 Ilana Gershon deposited Digital Economy and Labor in the group Labor Studies https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1856717/ Mon, 28 Aug 2023 01:11:05 +0000 Digital Economy and Labor

]]> 0 4af0345c29d90f5e90604f231cc014fe Ilana Gershon deposited Digital Economy and Labor in the group Anthropology https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1856716/ Mon, 28 Aug 2023 01:11:03 +0000 Digital Economy and Labor

]]> 0 61f0fb33e888a6019e2cb7d0e8cf0244 Ilana Gershon deposited Planning Your Research in the group Anthropology https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1856715/ Mon, 28 Aug 2023 01:11:00 +0000 Planning Your Research

]]> 0 9e37a2762fb7522c7d4fc5f4c0dc4c23 Ilana Gershon deposited New Media and Laborunlocked in the group Labor Studies https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1856714/ Mon, 28 Aug 2023 01:10:56 +0000 In the early decades of the internet, many saw new channels of communication as potentially beneficial disruptions, analyzing largely through a utopic lens, albeit often with a technolibertarian bent. This did not last, and by the 2020s, scholars were increasingly pessimistic about how neoliberal logics structured the ways these technologies…[Read more]

]]> 0 8838dff810dbe14c8de7185defc55545 Ilana Gershon deposited New Media and Laborunlocked in the group Anthropology https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1856713/ Mon, 28 Aug 2023 01:10:54 +0000 In the early decades of the internet, many saw new channels of communication as potentially beneficial disruptions, analyzing largely through a utopic lens, albeit often with a technolibertarian bent. This did not last, and by the 2020s, scholars were increasingly pessimistic about how neoliberal logics structured the ways these technologies…[Read more]

]]> 0 93e0426843ef64b2ccfab73e9524c514 Ilana Gershon deposited The Worst of Anthro Job Ads for 2021 in the group Labor Studies https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1856712/ Mon, 28 Aug 2023 01:10:50 +0000 Every fall, some lucky anthropology departments get to hire. The search for a new colleague happens behind the scenes for a while before it goes public—five-year plans have been written, external reviews have been navigated, lots of conversations have occurred, and some pleading with a dean has taken place. But the first public hint that the d…[Read more]

]]> 0 e165c91bdf6279ae41bf9c1a66727ecd Ilana Gershon deposited The Worst of Anthro Job Ads for 2021 in the group Anthropology https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1856711/ Mon, 28 Aug 2023 01:10:47 +0000 Every fall, some lucky anthropology departments get to hire. The search for a new colleague happens behind the scenes for a while before it goes public—five-year plans have been written, external reviews have been navigated, lots of conversations have occurred, and some pleading with a dean has taken place. But the first public hint that the d…[Read more]

]]> 0 2fb693b7b6a7d4438ed4d9ae5ac0f51c Ilana Gershon deposited Genres are the drive belts of the job market in the group Labor Studies https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1856710/ Mon, 28 Aug 2023 01:10:44 +0000 Many job applicants spend an inordinate amount of time struggling with the task of fashioning the most appealing biography of the increasingly skillful self out of interwoven genres that can also circulate individually. These struggles are most frequently articulated as questions of how best to manage different genres’ chronotopic expectations. U…[Read more]

]]> 0 4872cfb9a3d6bec1c31b45d3b9dc2651 Ilana Gershon deposited Genres are the drive belts of the job market in the group Anthropology https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1856709/ Mon, 28 Aug 2023 01:10:41 +0000 Many job applicants spend an inordinate amount of time struggling with the task of fashioning the most appealing biography of the increasingly skillful self out of interwoven genres that can also circulate individually. These struggles are most frequently articulated as questions of how best to manage different genres’ chronotopic expectations. U…[Read more]

]]> 0 caface8569eb7ac78f0f1e9933ff4331 Ilana Gershon deposited How to Know When Not to Know: Strategic Ignorance When Eliciting for Samoan Migrant Exchanges in the group Anthropology https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1856708/ Mon, 28 Aug 2023 01:10:38 +0000 How to Know When Not to Know: Strategic Ignorance When Eliciting for Samoan Migrant Exchanges

]]> 0 74d5aedb9a281924eafb3e9b96a0c620 Ilana Gershon deposited Converting Meanings and the Conversion of Meaning in Samoan Moral Economies in the group Anthropology https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1856707/ Mon, 28 Aug 2023 01:10:35 +0000 Converting Meanings and the Conversion of Meaning in Samoan Moral Economies

]]> 0 b73392d1a7866b6bf676aca731a54ad2 Ilana Gershon deposited When Culture Is Not A System: Why Samoan Cultural Brokers Can Not Do Their Job in the group Anthropology https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1856706/ Mon, 28 Aug 2023 01:10:32 +0000 In independent and American Samoa, Samoan representatives have historically been successful at furthering their communities’ interests when dealing with various colonial regimes. Yet during my fieldwork in California, I kept witnessing failed encounters between Samoan migrants and government officials. I argue that government officials helped…[Read more]

]]> 0 df9c7230a848e936872103594d2eba65 Ilana Gershon deposited Viewing Diasporas from the Pacific: What Pacific Ethnographies Offer Pacific Diaspora Studies in the group Anthropology https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1856705/ Mon, 28 Aug 2023 01:10:29 +0000 This article explores what long-standing analytical traditions in Pacific ethnographies can offer Pacific diaspora studies. In particular, I advocate researchers’ reconceptualizing their unit of analysis when interrogating the relationships between families and diasporas, and argue that family networks fashion diasporas’ longevity and tangibility.…[Read more]

]]> 0 68d7a0f42684c3c30ab20e60f48a7149 Ilana Gershon deposited Indigeneity for Life: Bro’town and Its Stereotypes in the group Anthropology https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1856704/ Mon, 28 Aug 2023 01:10:26 +0000 Indigeneity for Life: Bro’town and Its Stereotypes

]]> 0 96138b5f7f0099f7cda37fd2e2a8e09a Ilana Gershon deposited Mirrors and Numbers among Others: Technologies of Identification in Papua New Guinea in the group Anthropology https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1856703/ Mon, 28 Aug 2023 01:10:23 +0000 Mirrors and Numbers among Others: Technologies of Identification in Papua New Guinea

]]> 0 0fd63db776efdce9bb7f32bc8710f6fb Ilana Gershon deposited Email my heart: remediation and romantic break-ups in the group Anthropology https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1856702/ Mon, 28 Aug 2023 01:10:21 +0000 For the past year, I have been collecting people’s stories about how they break-up using new social technologies – text-messaging, instant messaging, Facebook, email, voicemail, and so on. These are narratives about how changes in media create new possibilities for disconnecting with others. In telling these stories, people are also being explicit…[Read more]

]]> 0 adf886578acf9794c67808605823c20d Ilana Gershon deposited Living Theory in the group Anthropology https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1856701/ Mon, 28 Aug 2023 01:10:18 +0000 When writing, ethnographers are faced with the hermeneutic task of interweaving their dialogues with scholars and their dialogues with their interlocutors in the field. This article is a critique of a long-standing tendency in anthropology to conflate social analysis in texts with social analysis on the ground. I am taking issue with a tendency to…[Read more]

]]> 0 94e6bda2f132f1ca8babc455310b9ccd Ilana Gershon deposited Bruno Latour in the group Anthropology https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1856700/ Mon, 28 Aug 2023 01:10:15 +0000 Bruno Latour

]]> 0 30c17d2d34c0967aec87ea587bb3cd00 Ilana Gershon deposited “Neoliberal Agency” in the group Anthropology https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1856699/ Mon, 28 Aug 2023 01:10:12 +0000 This article addresses the challenges a neoliberal conception of agency poses to anthropologists. I first discuss the kind of self that a neoliberal agency presupposes, in particular a self that is a flexible bundle of skills that reflexively manages oneself as though the self was a business. I then explore the dilemmas this neoliberal agency…[Read more]

]]> 0