bio

Silvia Margot Lindtner (she/her) is a writer and ethnographer. She is Associate Professor at the University of Michigan in the School of Information and Director of the Center for Ethics, Society, and Computing (ESC). Lindtner's research focuses on the cultures and politics of technology innovation, including the labor necessary to incubate entrepreneurial life and data-driven futures. Drawing from over a decade of multi-sited ethnographic research, she writes about China's shifting position in the global political economy of computing, supply chains, industrial and agricultural production, and science and technology policy. She is the author of the award-winning book Prototype Nation: China and the Contested Promise of Innovation (Princeton University Press, 2020), and co-author of the multigraph Technoprecarious (Goldsmiths/MIT Press 2020).

Lindtner has a courtesy appointment in the Penny W. Stamps School of Art and Design and is affiliated with several interdisciplinary centers and initiatives on campus including the Lieberthal-Rogel Center for Chinese Studies, the Science, Technology and Society Program, the Digital Studies Institute, the Michigan Interactive and Social Computing Research Group, and directs the Tech.Culture.Matters. research group. She is also Visiting Associate Professor at NYU Shanghai, a CUSP (China-US Scholars Program) Fellow, and a fellow in the National Committee on United States-China Relations’ Public Intellectuals Program.

Lindtner’s work contributes to the fields of STS (science and technology studies), cultural and feminist anthropology, China studies, HCI (human computer interaction), global communication studies, science and technology policy, and design. Her research has been awarded support from the US National Science Foundation, IIE (the Institute of International Education), IMLS (Institute of Museum and Library Services), Intel Labs, Google Anita Borg, and the Chinese National Natural Science Foundation. Her work has appeared at ST&HV (Science, Technology, and Human Values), ESTS (Engaging Science, Technology and Society), SocialText, Women’s Studies Quarterly, China Information, ToCHI, ACM SIGCHI (Human-Computer Interaction), ACM CSCW (Computer Supported Cooperative Work & Social Computing), among other venues. 

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RECENT talks & PODCASTS:

Podcast, New Technoviews, with Joseph Bosco, Oct 26, 2022.

Podcast, Sinica, with Kaiser Kuo, July 22, 2022.

Interview, Association for Asian Studies, with Maura Cunningham, July 1, 2022.

Conversation with Melinda Liu: “China’s Zero Covid Policies: Impact and Implications,” hosted by the National Committee on US-China Relations, May 23, 2022.

ESC ROUTES: COVID Tech & China: After Authoritarianism? After Surveillance? After Covid?

A series of online conversations about both timely and enduring issues in relation to the politics and ethics of computing and digital technology. We will experiment with formats including but not limited to podcasts, zoom panels, online fishbowls, remote workshops, and more. Check out our latest ESC ROUTES event plus report from the workshop series here:

News:

Prototype Nation (princeton University Press) won the 2022 Joseph levenson Prize for china scholarship post 1900 by the association for Asian studies.

excerpt from the award text: “Theoretically engaging and clearly written, Prototype Nation provides thick ethnographies of individuals and groups committed to alternative ways of producing technologies, while at the same time uncovering the colonial tropes and exploitative labor practices that undergird their work and that sustain the ongoing expansion of finance capitalism. The book thus puts China at the center of a global story of labor precarization, offering insights and provocations on the future tasks of critical scholarship beyond China.”

prototype nation WON the 2021 Francis L.k. Hsu book Prize by the society for east asian anthropology (seaa)

excerpt from the award ceremony read by Professor Marvin Sterling: “Built upon a decade of ethnographic research in maker- and related spaces, rich in the stories of makers and entrepreneurs, but also, for example, the female office workers whose affective labor helps make these spaces viable, the book represents an important resource for understanding the growing competition in science and technology between China and the United States.  An innovative and ethnographically committed work, Prototype Nation offers important insight into our technological present and possible futures, richly manifesting and celebrating the potential of anthropological research within and across disciplinary boundaries.”

reviews:

Jason Li, “Looking at China and Seeing Ourselves: Two Ethnographies of Tech in China”

“Ethnographies of tech in China are a rare beast (and a welcome change from the common framing of either business hype or tech dystopia), so we are extraordinarily lucky to have two such books published over the past year to show us what it's really like on the ground there. … And if you think these are just books about China, actually both books show the very real flow of goods, people and ideas from the US to China *and vice versa.* This explains the title of the review — tech in China might seem far but it's a lot closer and familiar than we think.” (Li, Twitter)

Lena Kaufman, China Quarterly:

“the author’s greatest achievement is—far beyond the Chinese case—to render visible and to powerfully question highly ambivalent narratives of progress and techno-solutionism, and the (often-unfulfilled) promises of intervention and happiness that these entail. Scholars such as Ching Kwan Lee and Pun Ngai have already raised awareness of the delirious conditions in Chinese factories, but Lindtner deepens our understanding by revealing the less obvious inequalities in China’s design, digital and entrepreneurial labor… Lindtner provides an original and fresh look at the understudied industries that have merged in the information age. This makes Prototype Nation highly innovative in itself, and a must-read for students and observers of contemporary China… and all those concerned with processes of innovation and technological modernization – not only academics, but also practitioners in precisely these processes.”