This week I was particularly struck by Lisa Nakamura’s piece on “Indigenous Circuits: Navajo Women and the Racialization of Early Electronic Manufacture.” I think in regards to theories of computation, I am always most drawn in by works that engage with theories that draw in the experiences of real people and communities. Nakamura has a strong draw towards this kind of methodology, and the specific element of centralizing indigenous women is one that should be highlighted more frequently.
One specific passage that piqued my interest and perplexed me occurs on page 936, Nakamura explains Montford and Bogost’s interventions into digital labor theory: “whatever the programmer takes for granted when developing, and whatever, from another side, the user is required to have working in order to use particular software,” Nakamua then intervenes: “The existence of cheap female labor is absolutely taken for granted as a precondition of digital media’s existence, for as Montford and Bogost show us in their cultural history of the Atari VCS game platforms, software is always a response to hardware and its constraints.” In this specific exchange, I am perplexed about the interaction between hardware and software as a response mechanism. Perhaps this is due to my own lacking literacy in matters of computation, is it the construction of physical hardware by Indigenous women as a precursor to the developments of subsequent software that is being interrogated? Or is this operating on another plane of computation theory that I have yet to grasp?
One specific passage that piqued my interest and perplexed me occurs on page 936, Nakamura explains Montford and Bogost’s interventions into digital labor theory: “whatever the programmer takes for granted when developing, and whatever, from another side, the user is required to have working in order to use particular software,” Nakamua then intervenes: “The existence of cheap female labor is absolutely taken for granted as a precondition of digital media’s existence, for as Montford and Bogost show us in their cultural history of the Atari VCS game platforms, software is always a response to hardware and its constraints.” In this specific exchange, I am perplexed about the interaction between hardware and software as a response mechanism. Perhaps this is due to my own lacking literacy in matters of computation, is it the construction of physical hardware by Indigenous women as a precursor to the developments of subsequent software that is being interrogated? Or is this operating on another plane of computation theory that I have yet to grasp?
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