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Course Description

The Silicon Valley is frequently championed as a model for technological innovation, where high revenue generation and disruptive technologies are attributed to a culture of competitive collaboration, lean methodologies, and colorblind meritocracy. At the same time—and especially recently with major tech companies releasing demographic data of their workforce—it is critiqued for its underlying structures that promote patriarchy, racialization, and exploitation. Thus, as the Silicon Valley increasingly becomes less of a place and more of a protocol for how to work and live, this course will examine how related socio-cultural forms and practices (hacking, responsible entrepreneurship, tech startup ecosystems) circulate and become re-assembled across boundaries of race, gender, class, and nation. How can classic and emerging anthropological methodologies and theoretical frameworks help us think critically about the complex processes that undergird the “Silicon Valley”?