Software and Human Systems: An Academic and Applied Introduction

Abstract

This special issue shows that the intersection of software and human systems is necessarily academic and applied. The collected articles make clear that software needs anthropological analyses while demonstrating that understanding the impact of software requires technological expertise. Software and human systems meet in specific programs, institutions, and histories. For anthropologists, this intersection requires confronting the software “as data” dilemma—we gain analytical purchase by treating software as another type of data, yet this approach can also mean losing sight of the algorithmic work that software accomplishes in our everyday lives. Software is not mere data but has a variety to it akin to the diversity that anthropology has long interrogated. This introduction advocates for an approach based in “Human-Computer Assembled Networks”—recognizing how software and human systems work through specific interfaces, assemble technologies and resources and human actors, and function through networks both human and algorithmic. Overall, the collected articles demonstrate an array of ways to do applied anthropology, ranging from ethnographic work on specific projects, the development of specific software informed by anthropology, and critical engagements with histories of software and technology. Finally, this special issue advocates for a translational approach that is specifically positioned to mediate between academic and applied approaches.