The Good Robot
Join Dr Eleanor Drage and Dr Kerry McInerney as they ask the experts: what is good technology? Is ‘good’ technology even possible? And how can feminism help us work towards it? Each week, they invite scholars, industry practitioners, activists, and more to provide their unique perspective on what feminism can bring to the tech industry and the way that we think about technology. With each conversation, The Good Robot asks how feminism can provide new perspectives on technology’s biggest problems.
The Good Robot
Repurposing an ATM, Joy and Decolonial Politics in Puerto Rico with Frances Negron-Mutaner
In this episode, we talk to Frances Negron-Mutaner, an award-winning filmmaker, writer, and scholar and Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University, New York City. We discuss her Valor y Cambio or Value and Change project that brought a disused ATM to the streets of Puerto Rico filled with special banknotes. On the banknotes were the faces of Black educators, abolitionists and visionaries of a Caribbean Confederacy - people who are meaningful and inspirational to Puerto Ricans today. The machine asked the person retrieving bills what they valued, and in doing so, sparked what Frances calls decolonial joy. Together, we explore the unintended repurposing of technologies for decolonial and anti-capitalist purposes.