Engaging Platforms in Open Scholarship/Researching Platforms and Digital Environments

Tools, Methods, and Approaches

Apperley, Thomas, and Jussi Parikka. 2018. “Platform Studies’ Epistemic Threshold.” Games and Culture 13 (4): 349–69. https://doi.org/10.1177/1555412015616509.

This work is situated at the intersection of game studies, media theory, and cultural practice. The authors advocate for a more critical and inclusive approach to platforms and platform studies, one that moves beyond hyperbole and early-adopter optimism. The authors offer tenets from the broad field of media archaeology as one way forward, proposing that the field’s analytical and critical interests intersect with platform studies in productive ways. Notably, Apperley and Parikka argue that media archaeology, like platform studies, seeks to challenge ‘black box’ thinking about platforms. However, unlike much of the work in platform studies at the time, media archaeology aims to uncover and interrogate the archives that make up a media device. Thus, Apperley and Parikka advocate for the consideration of platforms not just as technologies but as a set of choices, techniques, practices, and assumptions–that is, for platforms as archives. They conclude by emphasizing the need to move beyond industry-focused narratives and engage with the broader cultural, social, and historical contexts in which platforms exist, ultimately enriching the understanding of digital media and its evolution.

Are, Carolina. 2024. “Researching under the Platform Gaze: Rethinking the Challenges of Platform Governance Research.” Platforms & Society 1. https://doi.org/10.1177/29768624241283912.

Are examines the challenges of using social media platforms to research the same platforms, especially when studying subcultures and content at the margins, such as sex work. Drawing from the work of Michel Foucault, Laura Mulvey, creator economy research, and sex worker researchers, Are explains that platform governance research happens under the platform gaze, a gendered, raced, heteronormative, and puritan surveillance that renders marginalised individuals vulnerable to harassment by users and silencing by platforms. Researchers are also subject to the platform gaze because they need visibility to gather data on the creator economy and to disseminate their results, but they have limited control over platforms restricting the reach of their content or revoking their accounts due to their topics of research. To challenge platform power in academia, Are suggests developing research networks on platform governance that support scholars studying stigmatised topics on platforms, raising awareness of the issues related to platform governance among multiple stakeholders, balancing out research agendas that disagree with stigmatised topics, and questioning imbalances in academia and society in addition to those present in platforms.

Barnett, Tully. 2019. “Read in Browser: Reading Platforms, Frames, Interfaces, and Infrastructure.” Participations 16 (1). https://www.participations.org/16-01-15-barnett.pdf.

This paper considers what happens when physical books encounter digital platforms (e.g., by becoming ‘digitized’). Barnett importantly asks readers to consider what is gained and lost, and how readers and scholars might talk about, theorize, and understand this process. Arguing that this engagement must take into account the broader environments within which digitization occurs, Barnett suggests turning in part to work already underway by scholars in critical infrastructure studies. Critical infrastructure studies is frequently concerned with the ways in which the distribution of sites, processes, people, media, and things are intertwined with power, thus offering a way forward for those interested in moving beyond access/preservation debates to consider other equally important and influential factors impacting the packaging, distribution, and consumption of digital books.

Burgess, Jean. 2021. “Platform Studies.” In Creator Culture, edited by Stuart Cunningham and David Craig, 21–38. New York University Press. https://doi.org/10.18574/nyu/9781479890118.003.0005.

In this introductory chapter, Burgess provides an overview of ‘platforms’ as a concept and ‘paradigm’ before delving into different approaches to, as well as some guidelines for the study of platforms. From utilizing a web scraping tool to build a video corpus of YouTube videos in order to study how creators were engaging in debates and activism, to examining YouTube’s algorithms in order to better understand how platforms shape culture (which involved differentiating between what algorithms actually do and what algorithms are perceived to be doing by a platform’s users), Burgess offers succinct entry points into methods that vary in terms of their approach and assumptions. Other methods discussed include the combination of social network analysis and close readings of comments posted on a corpus of videos associated with music group ‘Das Racist’ (Murthy and Sharma 2019), as well as hybrid digital methods such as the ‘walkthrough,’ which involves a ‘systematic’ and ‘forensic’ walk through a platform in order to closely examine and document a platform’s use of design, appeals, and flows.

Burgess, Jean Elizabeth, and Nancy K. Baym. 2020. Twitter: A Biography. New York: New York University Press.

Burgess and Baym study Twitter through a platform biography, an original approach that uses multiple data sources to examine changes over time in a platform’s features and culture, as well as in the organization of the internet. The authors analyze three distinctive features of Twitter that were proposed by users—the @, the hashtag, and the retweet—and how the practices and norms surrounding them changed over time. The implementation of these features has followed similar pathways: appropriation, incorporation, contestation, and iteration. As Twitter matured, its emphasis shifted from interpersonal interaction to news, information, and advertising, which the authors found opened the doors to its current problems of disinformation, bots, and abuse. This shift also incentivizes users to participate in more media-centred ways to gather more attention and engagement.

Duguay, Stefanie, and Hannah Gold-Apel. 2023. “Stumbling Blocks and Alternative Paths: Reconsidering the Walkthrough Method for Analyzing Apps.” Social Media + Society 9 (1): 1–10. https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051231158822.

This article focuses on updating the ‘walkthrough method’ of research on platforms to bring it more in line with emerging directions and developments in platform studies. Originally developed as a way to systemically walk through a platform in order to carefully document and examine a platform’s designs, appeals, uses, and flows, the ‘walkthrough’ continues to endure as a strategy for researching platforms. However, the method would benefit from adopting approaches from adjacent research focused on algorithmically driven platforms, particularly, as Duguay and Gold-Apel note, the walkthrough method struggles to account for hyper-individualised platforms such as TikTok. To adapt, the authors survey literature that experiments with the careful creation of multiple research personas in order to document the ways in which experiences with TikTok shift depending on which persona is interacting with the app. The authors also describe employing a historiographical approach to trace the disappearance and reappearance of some features but not others, along with the introduction of new features.

Forberg, Peter L. 2022. “From the Fringe to the Fore: An Algorithmic Ethnography of the Far-Right Conspiracy Theory Group QAnon.” Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 51 (3): 291–317. https://doi.org/10.1177/08912416211040560.

Forberg performs a virtual, algorithmically-guided ethnography of the QAnon conspiracy theory to analyze the socio-technological processes that enable it to be incorporated into the mainstream discourse. In particular, he studies the role of algorithms, user experiences, and routines in this incorporation. Forberg found that QAnon followers took advantage of algorithmic processes to dictate discussions online and create momentum to promote fringe ideas across the Internet. Regarding user experiences, the author found that QAnon followers used platforms to spread different messages depending on the platform audiences and affordances. For example, TikTok and YouTube provide introductions to conspiracy theories, while Twitter and Facebook enable more personal connections and discussions between QAnon followers. Finally, the routines help explain how QAnon is incorporated into the offline lives of its followers through hobbyist participation and interpersonal engagement and proselytization. Forberg concludes that QAnon followers have developed strategies to leverage current events and algorithms to push false narratives that eventually reach the offline world and mainstream discourse after spreading on different platforms.

Heise, Anne Hove Henriksen, Soraj Hongladarom, Anna Jobin, Katharina Kinder-Kurlanda, Sun Sun, Elisabetta Locatelli Lim, Annette Markham, Paul J Reilly, Katrin Tiidenberg, and Carsten Wilhelm. 2019. “Internet Research: Ethical Guidelines 3.0.” https://aoir.org/reports/ethics3.pdf.

Heise et al. develop the Association of Internet Researchers’ ethical guidelines for internet research. As different cultures follow different ethical frameworks and traditions, these guidelines suggest following an approach of ethical pluralism for internet research, which entails resolving these differences by showing how research practices are understood as diverse interpretations and applications of a shared norm. The guidelines also acknowledge that the ethical problems that arise in internet research evoke more than one ethical response to a specific dilemma. The main issues addressed in the guidelines include informed consent in big data, protecting participants and researchers from online harm and harassment, the collection of the strictly necessary data for research, compliance with different laws and funding requirements, and data security. The guidelines conclude by recognizing that ethical challenges will emerge faster than the capacity to develop guidelines for addressing them. Therefore, they call for researchers to cultivate ethical judgments as part of their research and for engaging in dialogues with colleagues when facing ethical challenges.

Issar, Shiv. 2024. “The Social Construction of Algorithms in Everyday Life: Examining TikTok Users’ Understanding of the Platform’s Algorithm.” International Journal of Human–Computer Interaction 40 (18): 5384–98. https://doi.org/10.1080/10447318.2023.2233138.

Issar uses a sample of 100 TikTok videos to explore the major themes expressed on TikTok regarding its algorithm, as well as users’ level of algorithmic awareness. The results found that 49 videos expressed a basic level of algorithm awareness, 24 exhibited a critical level, and 27 a rhetorical level. The basic awareness assumes that any user can manipulate the TikTok algorithm in their favour. Users with critical awareness believe that the algorithm’s aesthetic assessments could impact their visibility on the platform. Users with a rhetorical awareness usually contribute to folk theories attempting to explain how the TikTok algorithm works, and believe that the algorithm is constantly evolving and can be trained to gain more followers or views. Issar concludes that a heightened level of algorithmic awareness might influence cultural production and social interaction on social media platforms.

Karatzogianni, Athina, and Jacob Matthews. 2020. “Platform Ideologies: Ideological Production in Digital Intermediation Platforms and Structural Effectivity in the ‘Sharing Economy.’” Television & New Media 21 (1): 95–114. https://doi.org/10.1177/1527476418808029.

Arguing that it is no longer enough to see ‘sharing’ platforms (such as AirBnb) as just cultural intermediaries, Karatzogianni and Matthews explore methods for teasing out the persuasive and ideological power (or ideological production) that they argue platforms wield across discourses and communities, particularly in relation to “the sharing economy”. To do this, the authors build an analytical apparatus drawing on key debates and concepts from three main sets of literature: digital labor organization and gig work, critical economy of platformization, and digital activism scholarship. Next, Karatzogianni and Matthews set to work by analyzing the documents, field work notes, observations of events, and transcripts from semi-structured interviews conducted over a two-year period with 28 “platform actors” located in Barcelona, Paris, and Berlin. (Note: “Platform actors” were a range of individuals considered to be ‘key players’ by the authors and included Smart City consultants, digital artists and activists, developers and hackers, cooperatives and commons activists, NGO representatives, public policy representatives, and competition authority officers). They found three themes that recurred across the data. Unsurprisingly, there were efforts to legitimize neoliberalism and/or reassert a ‘more humane’ alternative to capitalism. Also present were visions of a cooperative society that included commons-oriented production and recapturing public space as commons. At the same time, Karatzogianni and Matthews noted how entwined platform actors were with the platforms they depended on. This put actors in a fraught position, as it often meant they involuntarily promoted or enabled the very conditions they sought to transform.

Markham, Annette, and Elizabeth Buchanan. 2017. “Research Ethics in Context: Decision-Making in Digital Research.” In The Datafied Society, edited by Mirko Tobias Schäfer and Karin Van Es, 201–10. Amsterdam University Press. https://doi.org/10.1515/9789048531011-017.

Markham and Buchanan connect examples of internet research with the ethical guidelines of the Association of Internet Researchers to create a more comprehensive framework regarding issues of privacy, harm and vulnerability. The authors advocate for a flexible set of guidelines that respond to the changing nature of the field and allow researchers to conduct their work responsibly according to their disciplinary norms and individual judgments and values. Regarding privacy, they state that public/private information is not a binary, so seeking informed consent depends on the sensitivity, identifiability, and vulnerability of the information. The authors conclude that researchers should consider ethical issues throughout the research process and after its conclusion, considering that the greater the vulnerability of the participants and communities, the greater the need to protect them.

Mehlenbacher, Ashley Rose, and Brad Mehlenbacher. 2021. “Rogue Rhetorical Actors: Scientists and the Social Action of Tweeting.” In Genre in the Climate Debate, edited by Sune Auken and Christel Sunesen, 179–93. De Gruyter Open Poland. https://doi.org/10.1515/9788395720499-010.

In this short chapter, Mehlenbacher and Mehlenbacher share a case study of scientists who use then-Twitter (now ‘X’) to engage in conversations with policy makers, publics, and other scientists about the climate. The authors focus on a particular case, in which several federal U.S. agencies received a gag order, and the resistance and ‘rogue’ actions that ensued. Tweets were analysed through the lens of rhetorical genre theory (or RGT), which re-conceptualizes genre as social, typified ways of responding to recurring rhetorical situations and as artifacts that can tell us more about how a culture perceives and structures itself. Mehlenbacher and Mehlenbacher argue that RGT can support efforts to uncover and examine content shared on platforms such as Twitter can act as precursors to more politicised arguments and actions. However, the authors also note that while the use of platforms to build and share argumentation, they also open up different opportunities for these same efforts to be co-opted and re-used in unintended ways. Nevertheless, Mehlenbacher and Mehlenbacher remain cautiously optimistic.

Sætra, Henrik Skaug, Mark Coeckelbergh, and John Danaher. 2022. “The AI Ethicist’s Dilemma: Fighting Big Tech by Supporting Big Tech.” AI and Ethics 2 (1): 15–27. https://doi.org/10.1007/s43681-021-00123-7.

Sætra et al. examine the AI ethicist’s dilemma, a situation that arises when a digital ethicist has to use social media to raise awareness about major problems related to social media. This is a moral dilemma because communicating the problems through social media risks reducing the chances of addressing them. The authors analyse this dilemma by combining the three major ethical theories: virtue ethics, deontology, and consequentialism. Their analysis shows that there are two main strategies that can be combined in these situations: working from within the system or working from without. The former strategy can provide power and reach to the ethicist, but it may prevent radical change and structural solutions. Working from without involves stepping out of the system to observe how it can be undermined while forming alliances with other sources of power, but it risks failing to achieve social change due to the low level of interaction with the system and the rest of society. The authors conclude that working from without, rather than the self-regulation of working within the system, is a necessary path to solve some of the foundational problems of AI and platforms, because it will seek solutions from political and moral philosophy and social change, rather than from the interests of big tech.

Seaver, Nick. 2017. “Algorithms as Culture: Some Tactics for the Ethnography of Algorithmic Systems.” Big Data & Society 4 (2): 205395171773810. https://doi.org/10.1177/2053951717738104.

Seaver proposes an approach to studying algorithms that goes beyond the technical definition of the term in computer science. He argues that using a technical definition isolates algorithms from the scrutiny of social scientists and humanists and separates algorithmic processes from cultural ones. This separation, which he calls algorithms in culture, implies that algorithms shape culture but they are not culture themselves. Instead, he proposes studying algorithms as culture, which views algorithms as unstable objects composed of collective human practices, and therefore, as part of culture. Seaver then proposes some ethnographic tactics to examine the cultural features of algorithms: scavenging cultural practices across multiple locations, attending to the barriers to access algorithms, treating interviews as fieldwork, parsing corporate documents, and bewaring irony. This ethnographic approach to algorithms views them as part of culture, constituted by rational procedures, institutions, people, intersecting contexts, and sensemaking.

Seaver, Nick. 2019. “Captivating Algorithms: Recommender Systems as Traps.” Journal of Material Culture 24 (4): 421–36. https://doi.org/10.1177/1359183518820366.

Drawing on fieldwork with developers of recommender systems, Seaver describes recommender systems as traps because they are designed with the purpose of “hooking” people into frequent usage. The author connects recommender systems to previous anthropological studies on animal trapping to explore how algorithmic systems operate in a middle ground between freedom and coercion to capture user attention. This logic of recommender algorithms as traps has given rise to “captivation metrics”, which measure the ability of a system to capture users so they continuously engage with a website or platform. As algorithmic recommendation has become an unavoidable part of the infrastructure of online cultural life, Seaver also describes infrastructure as a trap, because it simultaneously facilitates and constrains activity according to culturally specific preconceptions about the world.

Ethical Considerations

Carlson, Bronwyn, and Lotus Rana. 2024. “‘I Really like Wikipedia, but I Don’t Trust It’: Understanding First Nations Peoples’ Experiences Using Wikipedia as Readers and/or Editors.” Macquarie University. https://doi.org/10.25949/76YK-G627.

This report, commissioned by Wikimedia Australia, responds to earlier feedback provided by members of First Nations and Torres Strait Islander communities that indicated a reluctance to engage with Wikipedia resources for reasons Carlson and Rana set out to understand. Through a series of interviews, ‘yarning circles,’ and an online survey, the authors came to understand six main things. First, while Wikipedia was often used as a starting point for research among First Nation peoples, this most often pertained to topics other than First Nations cultural practices, histories, communities, languages and events. This might be because information relating to these topics was culturally unsafe for members of these communities, or because it was racist, missing, inappropriate, or inaccurate. The authors suggested that there is some benefit to considering access for non-Indigenous and First Nations peoples to certain cultural information written and edited by First Nations peoples. Lastly, the open editability of Wikipedia presented both a challenge and an opportunity. In terms of recommendations, Carlson and Rana suggest Wikimedia Australia establish an advisory board consisting of First Nations peoples who are compensated for their participation. They also suggest Wikimedia Australia focus on increasing awareness among members of these communities regarding the process of writing and editing content on Wikipedia, and that Wikimedia Australia reconsider the policy of open-access editing when it comes to First Nations content. Finally, the authors recommend that Wikimedia Australia create residencies or other paid opportunities that nurture the contributions of First Nations writers and editors, and develop a Cultural Safety Standards and regular review policy regarding First Nations content.

Couldry, Nick, and Ulises Ali Mejias. 2023. “The Decolonial Turn in Data and Technology Research: What Is at Stake and Where Is It Heading?” Information, Communication & Society 26 (4): 786–802. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2021.1986102.

Couldry and Mejias trace the evolution of the decolonial turn in critical technology and data studies, which analyzes the extraction of data for profit within the history of colonialism and its entanglement with capitalism and knowledge production throughout modernity. The authors overview similar ideas that predate the concept of data colonialism, such as digital colonialism and technocolonialism, but they point out that these concepts do not necessarily acknowledge the agency of people in the Global South to resist these extractive colonial processes nor the data extraction of marginalized populations in the Global North. In response, the decolonial turn provides an overall theory of data extractivism that contemplates practices in the Global North and South while connecting contemporary data practices to historic inequalities in the distribution of the world’s resources over the past five centuries. The data colonialism thesis claims that practices of data appropriation are a distinctive new type of resource extraction and a historic new phase of colonialism with a mode of dispossession through data. Under this view, digitization on its own does not cause a new form of colonialism until digital data is converted with a focus on generating profit. This perspective also recognizes the possibility that data extractivism may cause additional segmentations of the world’s resources that build upon and extend the racisms inherited from historical colonialism. The authors conclude that the decolonial turn and the data colonialism thesis offer the most comprehensive perspective to analyze the contemporary developments of data and technology.

Davis, Mark, and Jian Xiao. 2021. “De-Westernizing Platform Studies: History and Logics of Chinese and U.S. Platforms.” International Journal of Communication 15 (2021): 103-122.

In this article, Davis and Xiao question the focus of digital platforms research on Western platforms (such as Facebook, Instagram, Uber, Google, etc.). Bringing forward a consideration of Chinese platforms, the authors argue that while there may be similarities between Western and Chinese platforms, there are also differences that frequently are not accounted for in the prevailing literature. These differences cluster around four areas related to differing media histories, differing politics and ideologies underpinning the development of platforms, changes in economic and technological dynamics between China and the West aided by platform development, and differing perceptions of the role platforms play in society as well as the potential benefits they offer.

Gómez Cruz, Edgar, and Ramaswami Harindranath. 2020. “WhatsApp as ‘Technology of Life’: Reframing Research Agendas.” First Monday 25 (12). https://doi.org/10.5210/fm.v25i12.10405.

Gómez Cruz and Harindranath discuss the results of an ethnographic study on the use of WhatsApp in Mexico City to examine how it mediates the lived experience of individuals, families, and communities. The authors argue that, in several countries of the Global South, WhatsApp has become a technology of life due to its everydayness and pervasive presence in diverse life experiences. In the Mexican context, where 60% of the population uses WhatsApp, the app is a central infrastructure for communication because it is used as a technology for work, digital kinship, security, and micromanaging. Given the diversity of uses, WhatsApp is not only reinforcing existing forms of socialization but also facilitating new ones. Based on these results, the authors suggest two interventions for reframing research agendas on the use of social media and digital technologies. First, they highlight the limitations of data-driven research as it prioritises platforms that have a public API and prevents research questions on the cultural context and the use of technologies, particularly in the Global South. Second, the authors call for more ethnographic studies of technologies of life to examine how socio-historical context and cultures shape how these technologies are used and experienced in everyday life.

Ha, Seungyeon, Yujun Park, Jongpyo Kim, and Seongcheol Kim. 2023. “Research Trends of Digital Platforms: A Survey of the Literature from 2018 to 2021.” Telecommunications Policy 47 (8): 102543. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.telpol.2023.102543.

To answer their question regarding which country or countries lead research on platforms, Ha et al. conducted a systematic literature analysis of 1,224 articles published between January 2018 to December 2021. Articles needed to be related to the social sciences (defined to include the humanities, business, law, psychology, communication, etc.), published between 2018 and 2021, and available on SCOPUS, Web of Science, and/or Proquest. Their analysis suggests that two countries, China and the United States, dominate the research as well as the platform services ecosystem. Because of this, the authors argue for the need to diversify perspectives represented in the literature, along with the funding sources, scholars, topics, and methods.

Maurer, Jason. 2022. “Decolonial Affordances of a Digital Communal Heritage Platform: A Case Study of the Reciprocal Research Network.” ESSACHESS – Journal for Communication Studies 15 1 (29): 59–81.

In this article, Maurer examines a heritage platform (the Reciprocal Research Network) to learn more about its use and contexts. The Reciprocal Research Network platform is a cultural heritage repository that embeds certain social features in order to enable a reciprocal forum for discussion and research that was co-created by the U’mista Cultural Society, Musqueam Indian Band, Stó:lō Nation/Tribal Council, and the Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia. Despite being over a decade old, the platform has received little to no attention in platform studies related literature. In response, Maurer analysed the transcripts from nine semi-structured interviews with members of the steering committee, users, and developers. The transcripts were analysed using actor network theory, which involves locating the relations between human and non-human actors (people, objects, technologies, animals, ideas, inequalities, etc.) in order to better see how they form a network. Based on this analysis, Maurer suggests that the heritage platform supported efforts to break through cultural and technological barriers. However, while the platform offers potential to act as a third space, this potential is not fully utilized for a number of reasons that likely include limitations around funding and time, but also the Museum’s aversion to ceding control of knowledge creation. In addition, Maurer observed differences between the Museum’s and the communities’ use of the platform. Where the latter used the platform to revive culture, the former often seemed to reinforce the marginalization of the communities’ activities.

Murphy, Gillian, Constance de Saint Laurent, Megan Reynolds, Omar Aftab, Karen Hegarty, Yuning Sun, and Ciara M. Greene. 2023. “What Do We Study When We Study Misinformation? A Scoping Review of Experimental Research (2016-2022).” Harvard Kennedy School Misinformation Review, November. https://doi.org/10.37016/mr-2020-130.

Murphy et al. review 555 papers on experimental misinformation research published between 2016 to 2022 to identify trends and gaps in the literature. They found an increase in misinformation studies over time, with the majority focusing on political or health misinformation. However, the authors argue that there is an overrepresentation of samples from the United States and that most studies (78%) examined changes in beliefs and attitudes but not changes in behaviours due to exposure to misinformation. Another limitation in the literature was that 62.7% of the studies presented misinformation to participants in a text format, while video or audio were used in less than 2% of the studies. To better understand the influence of misinformation in attitude and behaviour changes, the authors suggest the use of methods that assess misinformation presented in multiple formats and platforms on repeated occasions over a longer time interval.

Poell, Thomas, Brooke Erin Duffy, David B. Nieborg, Bruce Mutsvairo, Tommy Tse, Arturo Arriagada, Jeroen De Kloet, and Ping Sun. 2024. “Global Perspectives on Platforms and Cultural Production.” International Journal of Cultural Studies, October, 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1177/13678779241292736.

Poell et al. criticize the dominance of Northwestern Europe and North America in platform studies, with central concepts in the field being informed by Western institutions, cultural practices, and ideals. In response, the authors propose a systematic research program that connects ideas from postcolonial and decolonial theory to platform studies in an effort to challenge the field’s universalism, American centrality, and Western frame of reference. This effort, which the authors call a global perspectives program, seeks to denaturalize dominant concepts and ideas through research from around the globe; use as frames of reference locations and instances that are not usually reference points; study how heterogeneous groups of social actors use platforms for cultural production (as opposed to having national states as frames of reference); and examine the global power relations that structure platform studies. To achieve this epistemic shift, the authors call for North American and European scholars to understand the industries, economies, and practices they study as specific (rather than universal) and as products of global power imbalances and material inequalities.