Platypod, The CASTAC Podcast

This bonus content is a reading from Platypus, the CASTAC Blog. The full post by Vineetha Nalla can be read at https://blog.castac.org/2026/11/field-notes-from-rajja-days-on-rest-and-recovery-for-migrant-construction-workers-in-bengaluru/. About the post: What does rajja, or a day of rest, actually entail for women? Did they have time to rest and recover from a week of physically demanding labour? What did opportunities for rest look like under conditions of precarious work and housing? And how were these opportunities shaped by climate stresses like flooding, heat and water scarcity?

This bonus content is a reading from Platypus, the CASTAC Blog. The full post by Junnan Mu can be read at https://blog.castac.org/2026/11/humming-savannah-on-the-data-center-as-a-site-of-resonance/. About the post: Beyond its visual obscurity, what sensory experiences can a data center offer? In this episode, we will dwell in the soundscape of a data center in Kenya's "Silicon Savannah," a smart city built from scratch by the national government, and experience the hum that brings histories, bodies, and places together.

This bonus content is a reading from Platypus, the CASTAC Blog. The full post by Beste İrem Köse can be read at https://blog.castac.org/2026/11/what-makes-an-egg-collapse-infrastructures-of-egg-freezing/. About the post: “Biologically speaking, your eggs are collapsing, your eggs are collapsing.” What did it mean, exactly, for an egg to collapse? The way my interlocutor expressed it in our native language, Turkish, was "yumurtaların çöküyor". Collapsing eggs was the fitting translation, but it still seemed strange. The Turkish verb "çökmek" is rather literal. A building could collapse; a bridge could collapse. But how does an egg collapse? While egg freezing is promoted to extend individual temporalities, it simultaneously creates new spatial attachments. The decision to freeze eggs is shaped not only by anxieties about reproducing within a limited fertile window, but also by the material conditions shaping the future of frozen eggs. (This episode is available in additional languages on Platypus, The CASTAC Blog.)

This bonus content is a reading from Platypus, the CASTAC Blog. The full post by Mandy Penney can be read at https://blog.castac.org/2026/11/mycelial-connections-to-past-present-and-pedagogy-communities-of-practice-and-care-my-dad-and-me/. About the post: Mushrooms, and what they inspire through their networked connections through the land, I now realize, have been a part of my personal and pedagogical self for a very long time, in ways both explicit and hidden.

This bonus content is a reading from Platypus, the CASTAC Blog. The full post by Karina Aranda can be read at https://blog.castac.org/2026/11/there-is-a-ghost-in-the-box-insightful-surprises-from-a-note-taking-archive/. About the post: In research processes, unexpected moments can prove immensely insightful. In this text, the author explores surprise, error, and disagreements to challenge the representation of note-taking archives as Second Brains for productivity. She distances herself from the efficiency-oriented approach that promotes technology-enhanced memory, framing note-taking archives —through the lens of slow and crip time—as fragile modes of existence and knowledge. (This episode is available in additional languages on Platypus, The CASTAC Blog.)

This bonus content is a reading from Platypus, the CASTAC Blog. The full post by Eugene, Gena Kim and Nathan Kim can be read at https://blog.castac.org/2026/10/back-to-class-designing-for-with-and-through-the-class-struggle/. About the post: The varied forms of violence and repression to quell unrest today also compel us to pursue a range of tactics; we must constantly maneuver to survive and win. We therefore should refuse any absolute commitment to any single method (workshops, interviews, ethnographies), and instead reorient the entirety of design towards engagement with the class struggle. So too do we seek to reorient the central aims of HCI as a disciplinary field with design theories. Rather than view a theorization of class struggle as one of many possible theories for better scholarship or products, we seek instead to understand the many possible theories of scholarship each as one possible component of a shared struggle. Long live the class struggle!

This bonus content is a reading from Platypus, the CASTAC Blog. The full post by Amanda Domingues can be read at https://blog.castac.org/2026/10/does-everything-belong-back-home-rethinking-repatriation-in-the-brazilian-context/. About the post: In Brazil, as across much of global archaeology, repatriation is recognized as the main consensus among professionals and communities working with ancient material culture. Alternative approaches exist but receive minimal attention because they challenge dominant disciplinary paradigms focused on rectifying colonial histories. This essay examines two such approaches, revealing tensions between preservation, institutional precarity, and historical responsibility, and raising questions about what "care" means when institutional capacity is unevenly distributed. Applying a supposed consensus without close attention to local realities obscures viable alternatives and reproduces knowledge hierarchies—both internationally and within national borders—that continue to marginalize Indigenous perspectives and local expertise. (This episode is available in additional languages on Platypus, The CASTAC Blog.)

This bonus content is a reading from Platypus, the CASTAC Blog. The full post by Rong Mu can be read at https://blog.castac.org/2026/10/unfinished-bodies-cosmetic-surgeries-among-aging-sex-workers-in-singapore/. About the post: When I met Mia in her massage parlour, she had recently undergone cosmetic surgery. She openly showed me the sutures, dense and deep, tracing almost her entire hairline. Two weeks earlier, she had travelled to Shanghai for a major facelift involving the lifting and tightening of the skin.

This bonus content is a reading from Platypus, the CASTAC Blog. The full post by David Antolínez can be read at https://blog.castac.org/2026/10/a-one-trick-pony-among-poly-metis-at-the-16th-esocite-congress/. About the post: From the beginning I felt the hospitality of the professors of the Universidad Nacional de Colombia, despite them being busy with final arrangements. Too aware of my peripheral role in this community, I decided to stay at the margin and pay close attention to others. A feminist ethnographer working with textiles gave the inaugural lecture. She started by confessing her ambivalent feelings about the usefulness of these international meetings. She next remembered one of the first congresses of the Latin American network, where John Law eagerly spoke about non-human agency. Despite the lack of remuneration and the inevitable waste (printed materials, disposable coffee cups, megabytes of stored files in the cloud, etc.), the committee accepted the challenge of hosting the 16th Congress of the Asociación Latinoamericana de Estudios Sociales de la Ciencia y la Tecnología (ESOCITE).

This bonus content is a reading from Platypus, the CASTAC Blog. The full post by Maria Isabel Trivilin can be read at https://blog.castac.org/2026/10/broilers-that-cant-even-fend-for-themselves-mother-hens-and-production-infrastructures/. About the post: In this post, Maria Isabel Trivilin immerses readers in southern Brazil's industrial broiler production. Through close-up ethnographic observation, she explores the web of relationships that emerges within confinement spaces, where broilers, unlike free-range chickens, can’t even fend for themselves. The agribusiness assemblage shaping their lives before they become food is woven from industrial, economic, political, and ethical interests, microbial science, and human care. Ultimately, Trivilin compels us to ask: Who is caring for whom — and who suffers from care’s violence — in a setting where death is the inevitable outcome? (This episode is available in additional languages on Platypus, The CASTAC Blog.)