We might imagine friction as an abrasive, grinding resistance — a cacophony of opposing wills and flying sparks. But friction can also be signified by social absence or silence. In his lightning talk for the EPIC2023 Kickoff, Shriram Venkatraman explains how ethnographers pay attention to the critical things they don’t see or hear.
Shriram Venkatraman is an Assistant Professor of Business and Management at the University of Southern Denmark and a Fellow of the Danish Institute of Advanced Studies. He is also an Adjunct Faculty at the Indian Institute of Management Kozhikode, India, and an Adjunct Professor of Anthropology at Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology, New Delhi, India. In addition to articles in peer-reviewed journal articles, he is the author of the book Social Media in South India (UCL Press) and co-author of the comparative book How the World Changed Social Media (UCL Press).