Conference Agenda

This paper presents preliminary ethnographic findings on Latin American startup ecosystems, based on fieldwork in Mexico City and Buenos Aires during August-September 2024. While Latin America experienced a startup boom (increasing from 9 to 34 unicorns between 2018-2021), the market has since declined with venture capital portfolios reduced by 30% and one-third of startups experiencing down rounds. Gathering from the literature on imaginaries and the anthropology of work, this work examines development of technologies as an articulator of post-“pink tide” neoliberal imaginaries. Based on interviews and participatory observation, identifies three prelimianry findings about entrepreneurs in the region. First, Latin American entrepreneurs function as “hybrid actors“ performing “border work” between two worlds: the traditional "real economy" tied to production and physical goods, and the innovation economy modeled after Silicon Valley. Second, the concept of "risk" is continuously renegotiated. While venture capital translates as "risk capital," the market recession has led VCs to seek progressively safer investments, creating tension between entrepreneurs and investors over what constitutes acceptable risk. Third, entrepreneurs operate within a universe of cultural references—from Silicon Valley figures like Peter Thiel to regional success stories like Marcos Galperín—that legitimize particular visions of entrepreneurial success and shape bodily practices and market visions.

Social media, particularly microblogging social media, has undergone major shifts in the past few years. These changes can be felt and analyzed globally. However, our project focuses on how the major ruptures in social media have played out in the specific national context of Canada, particularly in terms of news sharing.

This paper maps the Canadian fediverse of Mastodon instances. It also draws on participant observation and interviews to reveal how Canadian Mastodon admins and key users – including journalists and politicians – imagine Mastodon functioning as a Canadian answer to predominantly US-based social media. We also find a strong interest in local Mastodon instances – that is, social media that is specifically tied to a geographical region in Canada, such as a city or province, rather than the nation as a whole. We believe this relates to the erosion of local news coverage happening across Canada. However, we also find that Canadian Mastodon usage is only a fraction of that of US-based corporate social media. Ultimately, our study can provide methodological insights valuable for similar studies in other national contexts.

Urban spaces are shaped by affective atmospheres, emerging from the interplay of material, social, and digital components. Digitalization and ‘smart’ urban infrastructures introduce new dynamics, affecting how people experience and navigate urban environments. This study investigates the role of mobile media in shaping affective urban atmospheres within Shanghai’s public transport system, conceptualizing mobility as both a physical and digital process embedded in socio-political power structures.

Public transport operates as a hybrid space where movement of people, goods, and information converge. While data-driven mobility systems aim to enhance efficiency, they often neglect the affective dimensions of urban life. Research suggests that digital media and mobile technologies significantly shape urban atmospheres, influencing behavior and emotions in public spaces. This study, grounded in Non-Representational Theory and Affect Theory, develops a methodological toolset to systematically capture and visualize these atmospheres.

The research, conducted in Shanghai (April 2024), integrates GPS tracking, geolocated images, sniffer data for digital signal detection, and ethnographic field notes. By synchronizing these data sources, the study visualizes urban affective densities using heat maps and spatial analyses. Findings reveal that public transport atmospheres are shaped by a dynamic interplay of digital and material elements, offering new insights into mobility practices and urban social interactions.

This study contributes to research on public space and mobility while informing urban planning strategies. It highlights the need to incorporate affective atmospheres into smart city policies, ensuring urban mobility enhances both efficiency and quality of life.

This study investigates the construction of queer safe spaces in the Philippines utilizing computational methods and digital mapping. Building on prior work on queer cartography, we explored how physical and discursive elements shape queer safe spaces and developed a digital tool using Google Maps data and crowdsourced reviews to map geo-tagged queer bars. Using the lens of digital mapping and queer placemaking by LaRochelle (2020), we conceptualized online reviews as archives of personal experiences, demonstrating how discourse actively shapes locations into safe spaces for queer persons. We developed an interactive map using Folium in Python which displays location details and review-based scores, with marker intensity reflecting normalized ratings. We also performed topic modeling to analyze reviews, revealing that positive attributes include friendly staff, a pleasant atmosphere, and LGBTQ+ inclusivity, including drag performances. While negative reviews primarily focused on staff professionalism, they did not indicate safety concerns. Spatial analysis revealed concentrations of queer safe bars in Palawan, Surigao del Norte, and Metro Manila, although safety ratings suggest that the safest bars are located outside of the above mentioned areas. Our project demonstrates the feasibility of using computational methods to locate queer safe spaces as both physically and discursively constituted, contributing to queer placemaking scholarship and providing a tangible resource for the LGBTQ+ community. Future work will expand the dataset and engage with LGBTQ+ communities to map diverse safe spaces.