Handbook on Anthropology and Artificial Intelligence
Deep Insights
Cheltenham (UK); Northampton, MA (US): Edward Elgar Publishing (2026), xix, 495 pp.
"This timely Handbook provides a groundbreaking collection of anthropological research on artificial intelligence (AI), examining how anthropology can help to comprehend and critique its development. Evaluating the limits, hopes and fears of AI, leading experts explore its influence as a sociocultural phenomenon rather than a discrete technological system." (Publisher description)
Introduction: anthropology of artificial intelligence / Sahana Udupa and Peter Hervik, 1
PART I. FUTURES, FUTURITIES, CRITIQUE
1 Artificial intelligence futures: anticipatory infrastructures for engaged scholarship / Sarah Pink, Melisa Duque, Robert Lundberg and Zane Pinyon, 22
2 Nascence and AI futurities / Purnima Mankekar and Akhil Gupta, 33
3 Perspectivism and purposiveness toward an ancestral future: cutting AI’s guts open / Beatrice Bonami, 48
4 The depeche mode principle: communicational antimatter as the anthropological frontier of AI / Gabriel A. Medina-Aguilar, Jair E. Rivera-Tovar and Miguel H. De la
Vega Espinosa, 61
PART II. ANTHROPOLOGY OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: METHODOLOGICAL FRAMES
5 Anthropology of artificial intelligence: agency, powerful knowledge, and the algorithmic other / Michael D. Fischer and Sally A. Applin, 74
6 Prompt ethnography: critical methodology for generative AI / Sahana Udupa, 88
7AI as participant observer / Kevin Walker, 103
8 Artificial fieldwork? Speculating about the opportunities and challenges of VR-assisted ethnographic fieldwork in AI-generated virtual worlds / Rafael Verbuyst, 116
9 Understanding the effects of childhood trauma through AI-assisted ethnography / Gabriele Carmelo Rosato, 129
PART III. AI IN PRACTICE: MAKING AND TWEAKING AI
10 AI as user: imagined futures in games user research / Joshua D. Rubin, 151
11 Localizing the AI: an ethnography of balancing acts between the stakeholders in the periphery / Erkan Saka, 167
12 The language of AI: on the work of metaphor and metapragmatics in making artificial intelligence / Tariq Adely, 181
13 Generative AI and discourses of design / Mark Allen Peterson and Thea Peterson, 197
14 Early generative technologies and the Western aristocracy of labor / Javier Ruiz del Río and Xin Zhan, 211
15 Dapping to the end of love: algorithms and food delivery riders / Montserrat Cañedo-Rodríguez and Diego Allen-Perkins, 224
PART IV. LIVING WITH AI
16 Presencing the past with AI: virtual survivor testimonies and the Holocaust memory assemblage / Christoph Bareither and Berit Zimmerling, 238
17 The interplay between doctors and AI: the case of Norway and China / Zongtian Guo and Roanne van Voorst, 252
18 Navigating ambivalences: chronic living with “AI” / Sophie Wagner, 267
19 Therapeutic ideology and AI personhood: an anthropological inquiry into AI companionship / Fartein Hauan Nilsen, 280
20 The anthropology of GenAI and the question about digital violence / Veronica Barassi, 294
21 Celebrity face-swaps and bikini beauties: the circulation of synthetic pornography in China / Gabriele de Seta, 308
PART V. THE AI WEAPON
22 Israel, AI, and the military / Sophia Goodfriend, 323
23 Militarizing AI: the risks of algorithmic warfare / Roberto J. González, 334
24 Discourse on technological sovereignty and disciplining practices in contemporary Russia / Aleksandr Manuilov, 351
25 Sociotechnical imaginaries of AI and datafication of migration / Kaarina Nikunen, Karoliina Talvitie-Lamberg and Sanna Valtonen, 364
26 AI in policing: reflections of police practices / Lucien Schönenberg, 378
27 Entanglements in the process of adopting, developing, and regulating AI: mapping guidelines, disputes, and imaginaries from Brazil / Carolina Parreiras and Cilmara Veiga, 389
PART VI. COLONIALITY, BIAS, DISINFORMATION
28 Towards a decolonial AI? (Re)visiting contentious artificial intelligence issues in Africa / Chikezie E. Uzuegbunam and Roseline Chioma Muonanu, 403
29 Narrative frames and re-framing narratives: from AI as labor futures and regulation to AI as precarities and problematics / Sareeta Amrute, 418
30 AI and the climate crisis: power, ideology, and the politics of collapse / Paul Schütze, 430
31 Under the skin: AI, technology, and race in China / Christina Kefala, 443
32 Does AI contribute to ignorance and foster indifference, nihilism, and violent identity politics? / Peter Hervik, 456
33 AI and the fact-checking movement: facts, fakes, and the battle for visual trust / Mihai Andrei Leaha and Roger Canals, 470
PART I. FUTURES, FUTURITIES, CRITIQUE
1 Artificial intelligence futures: anticipatory infrastructures for engaged scholarship / Sarah Pink, Melisa Duque, Robert Lundberg and Zane Pinyon, 22
2 Nascence and AI futurities / Purnima Mankekar and Akhil Gupta, 33
3 Perspectivism and purposiveness toward an ancestral future: cutting AI’s guts open / Beatrice Bonami, 48
4 The depeche mode principle: communicational antimatter as the anthropological frontier of AI / Gabriel A. Medina-Aguilar, Jair E. Rivera-Tovar and Miguel H. De la
Vega Espinosa, 61
PART II. ANTHROPOLOGY OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: METHODOLOGICAL FRAMES
5 Anthropology of artificial intelligence: agency, powerful knowledge, and the algorithmic other / Michael D. Fischer and Sally A. Applin, 74
6 Prompt ethnography: critical methodology for generative AI / Sahana Udupa, 88
7AI as participant observer / Kevin Walker, 103
8 Artificial fieldwork? Speculating about the opportunities and challenges of VR-assisted ethnographic fieldwork in AI-generated virtual worlds / Rafael Verbuyst, 116
9 Understanding the effects of childhood trauma through AI-assisted ethnography / Gabriele Carmelo Rosato, 129
PART III. AI IN PRACTICE: MAKING AND TWEAKING AI
10 AI as user: imagined futures in games user research / Joshua D. Rubin, 151
11 Localizing the AI: an ethnography of balancing acts between the stakeholders in the periphery / Erkan Saka, 167
12 The language of AI: on the work of metaphor and metapragmatics in making artificial intelligence / Tariq Adely, 181
13 Generative AI and discourses of design / Mark Allen Peterson and Thea Peterson, 197
14 Early generative technologies and the Western aristocracy of labor / Javier Ruiz del Río and Xin Zhan, 211
15 Dapping to the end of love: algorithms and food delivery riders / Montserrat Cañedo-Rodríguez and Diego Allen-Perkins, 224
PART IV. LIVING WITH AI
16 Presencing the past with AI: virtual survivor testimonies and the Holocaust memory assemblage / Christoph Bareither and Berit Zimmerling, 238
17 The interplay between doctors and AI: the case of Norway and China / Zongtian Guo and Roanne van Voorst, 252
18 Navigating ambivalences: chronic living with “AI” / Sophie Wagner, 267
19 Therapeutic ideology and AI personhood: an anthropological inquiry into AI companionship / Fartein Hauan Nilsen, 280
20 The anthropology of GenAI and the question about digital violence / Veronica Barassi, 294
21 Celebrity face-swaps and bikini beauties: the circulation of synthetic pornography in China / Gabriele de Seta, 308
PART V. THE AI WEAPON
22 Israel, AI, and the military / Sophia Goodfriend, 323
23 Militarizing AI: the risks of algorithmic warfare / Roberto J. González, 334
24 Discourse on technological sovereignty and disciplining practices in contemporary Russia / Aleksandr Manuilov, 351
25 Sociotechnical imaginaries of AI and datafication of migration / Kaarina Nikunen, Karoliina Talvitie-Lamberg and Sanna Valtonen, 364
26 AI in policing: reflections of police practices / Lucien Schönenberg, 378
27 Entanglements in the process of adopting, developing, and regulating AI: mapping guidelines, disputes, and imaginaries from Brazil / Carolina Parreiras and Cilmara Veiga, 389
PART VI. COLONIALITY, BIAS, DISINFORMATION
28 Towards a decolonial AI? (Re)visiting contentious artificial intelligence issues in Africa / Chikezie E. Uzuegbunam and Roseline Chioma Muonanu, 403
29 Narrative frames and re-framing narratives: from AI as labor futures and regulation to AI as precarities and problematics / Sareeta Amrute, 418
30 AI and the climate crisis: power, ideology, and the politics of collapse / Paul Schütze, 430
31 Under the skin: AI, technology, and race in China / Christina Kefala, 443
32 Does AI contribute to ignorance and foster indifference, nihilism, and violent identity politics? / Peter Hervik, 456
33 AI and the fact-checking movement: facts, fakes, and the battle for visual trust / Mihai Andrei Leaha and Roger Canals, 470
