material production piece primer
Spotlight: Material production
I am incredibly attached to my technology. Full stop. My iPhone and MacBook are always close to my body: they are like extensions of my self. When I am thinking about my online identities, they become an extension of myself. Step into any Apple store, and you’ll see tables and tables of shiny new machinery. Buy a new iPhone and the salesperson will pull one out from beneath those tables, all packaged and ready to be turned on.
But who is producing all of these commodities? Are they suffering?
How can we be DH-ers without being aware of the material conditions and exploitation which produce the objects we claim we can’t live without?
What happens to the iPhone you discard after a couple years in favour of the newest model?
The poetry and brief life of a Foxconn worker: Xu Lizhi (1990-2014)
China’s Electronic Waste Village
Resources
“Economies of Digital Production in East Asia: iPhone Girls and the Transnational Circuits of Cool” by Lisa Nakamura
“Circuits of Labour: A Labour Theory of the iPhone Era” by Jack Linchuan Qiu, Melissa Gregg, Kate Crawford
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