MCA: Understanding Logistics Through Multimodal Experiments in Ethnography

物流——即对货物、信息和人员流动的管理——一度被视为市场上制造业关注的附加内容，如今已转变为一种更普遍的情况，即事物如何在日常生活中流通。一方面，供应链物流的创新彻底改变了商品的生产和消费方式，以及劳动力、土地和基础设施的组织方式，以支持日益按需的全球经济。另一方面，后勤故障或中断——例如，企业网络服务故障或2019冠状病毒病大流行期间医疗用品短缺——可能引发各种政治和经济危机，影响预期的流动和公平分配。此类危机使公众注意到物流在塑造全球流动和相互依存方面的重要性。该项目扩大了数据科学中代表性不足的群体的参与，并包括一个内置的培训组件，有助于改善关键领域的学生STEM教育。该项目推进了对物流日益增长的社会影响的研究，作为组织和理解当代流动性、经济、安全和环境关系的不可或缺的方式。认识到物流的兴起与无处不在的计算及其相关的传感器、扫描仪、接口和基础设施的数字网络紧密相连，研究人员将开展一项探索性研究和培训计划，以开发新的多模式方法，更好地参与和代表为物流世界提供动力的隐藏计算和基础设施设计。通过与专家进行数字编码和数据可视化方面的培训，并通过一系列实地实验学校，推动世界各地关键物流热点领域跨学科学者之间的合作研究，该项目促进了人类学、计算机科学和媒体艺术之间的创造性协同作用，同时对物流如何影响全球流通中各种复杂的人、物和数据流动进行了比较研究。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Once seen as a mere add-on to manufacturing concerns in the market, logistics – that is, the management of flows in goods, information and people - has transformed into a more general condition of how things circulate through everyday life. On the one hand, innovation in supply chain logistics has revolutionized how goods are produced and consumed as well as how labor, land, and infrastructures are organized to support an increasingly on-demand global economy. On the other hand, logistical failures or interruptions – for example, in the malfunctioning of web services for businesses or in the shortage of medical supplies amid the COVID-19 pandemic – can spark various political and economic crises over expected movements and just allocations. Such crises bring public attention to the importance of logistics in shaping global flows and interdependence. This project broadens the participation of underrepresented groups in data science, and includes a built-in training component that contributes to the improvement of student STEM education in critical fields. This project advances research on the growing social impact of logistics as an indispensable way of organizing and understanding contemporary relations of mobility, economy, security, and the environment. Recognizing that the rise of logistics is integrally tied to ubiquitous computing and its related digital networks of sensors, scanners, interfaces, and infrastructures, the researcher will pursue a program of exploratory research and training for developing new multimodal methods for better engaging and representing the hidden computational and infrastructural designs that power logistical worlds. Through training in digital coding and data visualization with an expert and through a series of experimental field schools for advancing collaborative research among an interdisciplinary set of scholars in key logistical hotspots around the world, the project fosters creative synergies between anthropology, computer science, and media arts while pursuing a comparative study of how logistics shapes the various entangled flows of people, things and data in global circulation.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.