Dr Guilherme Orlandini Heurich

Research summary

Gui Heurich is conducting a long-term fieldwork with computer programmers as part of his Leverhulme Trust project "CODE.ANTH: language, learning, and programming in computational cultures". CODE.ANTH starts with the following question: can anthropologists strengthen their knowledge of computational cultures by learning how to code? CODE.ANTH will pursue answers to this question by looking at how coders discuss and write code, how they conceive of a computer's “reading” and “interpretation” of information, and how they teach machines to learn.

The aims of this research are twofold:

1) To develop a new research method that combines a traditional ethnographic study with the technical knowledge of coding.

2) To establish, based on this research method, the anthropology of programming as a new field of study at the intersection of linguistic anthropology and digital anthropology – two sub-fields that have so far not been put into dialogue.

The current state of this project can be found here: http://code-anth.xyz

Previously, Heurich's research focused on the role of language in how indigenous communities in South America conceive of and are affected by relationships with other-than-human beings such as deceased kin, spirits and divinities.

Teaching summary

Heurich has taught lectures in the following modules: Linguistic Anthropology, Anthropology of War, and Forest Peoples.

Publications

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