Border Circuits is a project that examines the history and politics of electronics manufacturing in the US-México borderlands since 1965. The urban fabric of northern Mexican cities was transformed as government-enacted initiatives redrew territories and brought new industries to produce innovative technology. Mexican and Indigenous women who worked in electronics were at the forefront of living with and against the digital economy—its opportunities, its injustices, and its toxicities. Through an intersectional lens, inquiries of human-machine configurations, archival research, and discourse analysis, the project shows the integral role of Latina/o/es and of the borderlands as invisible infrastructures of the contemporary world.
This project will be developed through the Border Tech Lab, an interdisciplinary research collective including a primary investigator, graduate and undergraduate students, and other collaborators. Members of the BTL work collaboratively to produce new understandings on the fabrication and reproduction of inequities in digital platforms across time and space. Lab members pursue original research and work that contributes to public knowledge and to the communities whose experiences are at the heart of what we study.
The PI is recruiting curious, motivated, and inquisitive undergraduate students interested in joining a research lab devoted to the study of science, technology, and society (STS).
Having experience in academic research is desired but not required.
Writing and oral proficiency in Spanish is desired but not required.
There are no course prerequisites. Preference will be given to candidates who have taken classes about digital media, STS, and history of science and technology such as AMS 370 "Art & Data in the Digital," AMS 370 "Technologies of Displacement and Resistance," AMS 321/SOC322 "Race, Gender, & Surveillance," MAS 319 "Latinx Digital Worlds," and J 355G "The Information Society."
Spring 2023-Fall 2024 - Primary and secondary source research
Summer 2023-Fall 2023 - Oral history interviews
Fall 2023-Fall 2024 - Workshop book chapter manuscripts
As an undergraduate research assistant, students will conduct a range of research tasks, read assigned materials relevant to the field of STS, develop lab materials, workshop manuscripts, and discuss their research and relevant materials in weekly lab meetings (lasting 1.5 hours).
Lab members have the opportunity to develop their own research projects and work closely with the PI, graduate and undergraduate students, and other collaborators.
Students can join the BTL for course credit or pay.
