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Papers by Jolen A Martinez

Research paper thumbnail of Plantation Anticipation: Apprehension in Chicago from Reconstruction America to the Plantocratic Philippines

AntipodeOnline, 2024

This brief essay glances at an affective atmosphere in Chicago between 1875 and 1890, where white... more This brief essay glances at an affective atmosphere in Chicago between 1875 and 1890, where white anticipations of African American migration from plantations in the South were translated into new information sciences and policing techniques that made their way to plantations in places like the Philippines. I explore the feelings and practices that circulated among white residents of Chicago, paying particular attention to the ways racialized expectation became communicable as formatted and packaged “information”.

Research paper thumbnail of Visions of vectors: sense, race, and colonialism in machine learning practice

Information, Communication, and Society, 2024

This paper interrogates the informational practices shared between human and computer machine lea... more This paper interrogates the informational practices shared between human and computer machine learners as they train to sense the world through lines of order, or vectors. The paper does this by exploring the affective conditions through which vectors draw relations of data over a persistent, colonial image of race. Through analysis of pedagogical practices at the Summer Institute for Computational Social Science in Chicago, and a corresponding year-long machine learning design group, this paper examines how contemporary machine learning practitioners train themselves to sense calculative relationality on the basis of racialized difference. The paper compares this vectorized sensibility with 20th century enumerative practices in the United States by analyzing the racial statistics of W.E.B. Du Bois, Kelly Miller, and Frances Kellor to trace out affective histories of the vector. Ultimately, this paper asks how machine learners – whether algorithms or their human users – often project lines of colonial order upon other forms of life, and how, by questioning the claim of vector relations and their informational objects, we can confront this sense-training and reimagine ourselves.

Research paper thumbnail of Managing Mobility: New Materialist Approaches to Mughal Mobility in the Encampment and Constructed City

Rice Asian Studies Review, 2020

This paper interrogates mobility in the Mughal empire by examining living structures. Previous sc... more This paper interrogates mobility in the Mughal empire by examining living structures. Previous scholars have noted a
“transition between nomadism and sedentary life” between mobile and stone structures. However, by applying a new
materialist approach, this study analyzes the development of the Mughal imperial encampment and Fatehpur Sikri and
concludes encampment materials, spaces, and technologies were capable of shifting into im/mobility as the socio-political
need arose while maintaining a claim on movement. Comparing architectural designs, spatial structures, and material
encounters in both of these constructed environments, this article finds that Mughal designs afford both mobility and
fixity by expanding the sovereignty of the imperial figure by managing subjects’ movement.

Research paper thumbnail of A Malady of Provisions: Social Workers’ Moral Pedagogy and the Internalization of the Themitical among Homeless Subjects

Mellon Mays Undergraduate Journal, 2018

This paper examines the hermeneutical relationship between social workers and persons who are exp... more This paper examines the hermeneutical relationship between social workers and persons who are experiencing homelessness in the downtown area of Houston, Texas, seeking to understand both the ethical framework that underlies their engagement, and the social effects of this ethical inculcation. I illustrate that many social workers and volunteers occupy roles as moral pedagogues and undertake ethical projects to lift homeless persons from their perceived liminality on the streets. Furthermore, I argue that social workers emphasize productivity in their pedagogy towards homeless subjects, establishing an individualized model of ethical responsibility which ultimately alienates the homeless and incurs a process of self-blame. Although this paper presents preliminary research for a larger project, it nevertheless serves as an invitation to understanding homelessness through an ethical and political framework. Future research should examine new formulations of power in social workers’ promotion of neoliberal ethics.

Book Reviews by Jolen A Martinez

Research paper thumbnail of Four Lectures on Ethics: Anthropological Perspectives

Student Anthropologist, 2020

Four Lectures on Ethics: Anthropological Perspectives, written by Michael Lambek, Veena Das, Didi... more Four Lectures on Ethics: Anthropological Perspectives, written by Michael Lambek, Veena Das, Didier Fassin, and Webb Keane, is
a collaboration of essays related to recent developments in the anthropology of ethics. Containing similar themes on ethical relations and interpretations in historical, social, and cultural contexts, the included essays do not represent a single voice for understanding ethics in everyday life. Instead, the authors offer new discoveries of how people
render the world intelligible through ethical evaluation and hermeneutical processes. These discoveries present “the ethical” as a framework for further anthropological studies by pointing to how ethics intersects with every facet of human life, and also provide anthropologists with a theoretical heuristic for social analysis.

Research paper thumbnail of Plantation Anticipation: Apprehension in Chicago from Reconstruction America to the Plantocratic Philippines

AntipodeOnline, 2024

This brief essay glances at an affective atmosphere in Chicago between 1875 and 1890, where white... more This brief essay glances at an affective atmosphere in Chicago between 1875 and 1890, where white anticipations of African American migration from plantations in the South were translated into new information sciences and policing techniques that made their way to plantations in places like the Philippines. I explore the feelings and practices that circulated among white residents of Chicago, paying particular attention to the ways racialized expectation became communicable as formatted and packaged “information”.

Research paper thumbnail of Visions of vectors: sense, race, and colonialism in machine learning practice

Information, Communication, and Society, 2024

This paper interrogates the informational practices shared between human and computer machine lea... more This paper interrogates the informational practices shared between human and computer machine learners as they train to sense the world through lines of order, or vectors. The paper does this by exploring the affective conditions through which vectors draw relations of data over a persistent, colonial image of race. Through analysis of pedagogical practices at the Summer Institute for Computational Social Science in Chicago, and a corresponding year-long machine learning design group, this paper examines how contemporary machine learning practitioners train themselves to sense calculative relationality on the basis of racialized difference. The paper compares this vectorized sensibility with 20th century enumerative practices in the United States by analyzing the racial statistics of W.E.B. Du Bois, Kelly Miller, and Frances Kellor to trace out affective histories of the vector. Ultimately, this paper asks how machine learners – whether algorithms or their human users – often project lines of colonial order upon other forms of life, and how, by questioning the claim of vector relations and their informational objects, we can confront this sense-training and reimagine ourselves.

Research paper thumbnail of Managing Mobility: New Materialist Approaches to Mughal Mobility in the Encampment and Constructed City

Rice Asian Studies Review, 2020

This paper interrogates mobility in the Mughal empire by examining living structures. Previous sc... more This paper interrogates mobility in the Mughal empire by examining living structures. Previous scholars have noted a
“transition between nomadism and sedentary life” between mobile and stone structures. However, by applying a new
materialist approach, this study analyzes the development of the Mughal imperial encampment and Fatehpur Sikri and
concludes encampment materials, spaces, and technologies were capable of shifting into im/mobility as the socio-political
need arose while maintaining a claim on movement. Comparing architectural designs, spatial structures, and material
encounters in both of these constructed environments, this article finds that Mughal designs afford both mobility and
fixity by expanding the sovereignty of the imperial figure by managing subjects’ movement.

Research paper thumbnail of A Malady of Provisions: Social Workers’ Moral Pedagogy and the Internalization of the Themitical among Homeless Subjects

Mellon Mays Undergraduate Journal, 2018

This paper examines the hermeneutical relationship between social workers and persons who are exp... more This paper examines the hermeneutical relationship between social workers and persons who are experiencing homelessness in the downtown area of Houston, Texas, seeking to understand both the ethical framework that underlies their engagement, and the social effects of this ethical inculcation. I illustrate that many social workers and volunteers occupy roles as moral pedagogues and undertake ethical projects to lift homeless persons from their perceived liminality on the streets. Furthermore, I argue that social workers emphasize productivity in their pedagogy towards homeless subjects, establishing an individualized model of ethical responsibility which ultimately alienates the homeless and incurs a process of self-blame. Although this paper presents preliminary research for a larger project, it nevertheless serves as an invitation to understanding homelessness through an ethical and political framework. Future research should examine new formulations of power in social workers’ promotion of neoliberal ethics.

Research paper thumbnail of Four Lectures on Ethics: Anthropological Perspectives

Student Anthropologist, 2020

Four Lectures on Ethics: Anthropological Perspectives, written by Michael Lambek, Veena Das, Didi... more Four Lectures on Ethics: Anthropological Perspectives, written by Michael Lambek, Veena Das, Didier Fassin, and Webb Keane, is
a collaboration of essays related to recent developments in the anthropology of ethics. Containing similar themes on ethical relations and interpretations in historical, social, and cultural contexts, the included essays do not represent a single voice for understanding ethics in everyday life. Instead, the authors offer new discoveries of how people
render the world intelligible through ethical evaluation and hermeneutical processes. These discoveries present “the ethical” as a framework for further anthropological studies by pointing to how ethics intersects with every facet of human life, and also provide anthropologists with a theoretical heuristic for social analysis.