What happens when we treat hearing as an economic duty, and global tech corporations turn assistive devices into a lifetime commitment?

In this episode of The Good Robot, Eleanor Drage sits down with medical anthropologist Michele Friedner (University of Chicago) to discuss her groundbreaking book, Sensory Futures: Deafness and Cochlear Implant Infrastructures in India. Together, they dismantle the normative project of "normalization" and expose the immense, hidden labor required to keep assistive technologies up and running.

From the strict boundaries placed on mothers in auditory-verbal therapy sessions to the global shadow economies keeping obsolete devices "on-air," Friedner shares a deeply personal and poignant look at what happens when tech forces a narrowing of the human experience. Ultimately, she points us toward a more beautiful alternative: "fugitive sensing", where multi-sensory care, touch, and love actively resist an ableist failure of the imagination.

Reading List:

• Valuing Deaf Worlds in Urban India
• Deaf and Incarcerated in the U.S.
• The Obsolescence Issue
• Feminist, Queer, Crip
• Activist Affordances: How Disabled People Improvise More Habitable Worlds
  
  

Edited by: Meibel Dabodabo

Most companies unwittingly undermine their biggest growth opportunities by ignoring the complex morality of social media—where good technology depends on who controls it, and who benefits. Hosted by Eleanor Drage, this episode features Crystal Abidin, Professor of Internet Studies at Curtin University, who exposes the hidden power plays behind platforms like TikTok, revealing how what’s 'good' or 'bad' technology is often a matter of perspective—and power.

This eye-opening episode, Eleanor and Crystal explore how social media’s ambivalence shapes youth cultures and influence—covering TikTok’s surprising origins, from climate activism to viral animals, and how state bans and geopolitical tensions transform global online communities. Crystal breaks down how content creators, from neurodivergent communities to cultural niche groups, leverage memes, humor, and subcultural capitals to forge solidarity and push back against systemic inequities.

Reading List:

• https://wishcrys.com/
• TikTok Cultures Research Network

Her work:

• Abidin, Crystal. 2026. TikTok and Youth Cultures. Emerald Publishing.
• Abidin, Crystal. 2026. Child Influencers: How Children Become Entangled with Social Media Fame. Polity Press.
• Abidin, Crystal, and Natalie Pang (eds). 2025. Internet Popular Culture and (Everyday) Politics: Methodological & Ethical Critiques from Southeast Asia. Routledge.
• Gurrieri, Lauren, Jenna Drenten, and Crystal Abidin (eds). 2025. Influencer Marketing: Interdisciplinary and Socio-Cultural Perspectives. Routledge.
• Tiidenberg, Katrin, Natalie Ann Hendry, and Crystal Abidin. 2021. tumblr. Polity Press.
• Warfield, Katie, Crystal Abidin, and Carolina Cambre (eds). 2020. Mediated Interfaces: The Body on Social Media. Bloomsbury Academic.
• Leaver, Tama, Tim Highfield, and Crystal Abidin. 2020. Instagram: Visual Social Media Cultures. Polity Press.
• Abidin, Crystal, and Megan Lindsay Brown (eds). 2018. Microcelebrity Around the Globe: Approaches to cultures of internet fame. Emerald Publishing.
• Abidin, Crystal. 2018. Internet Celebrity: Understanding Fame Online_. _Emerald Publishing.

In this episode of The Good Robot, Eleanor Drage sits down with David Griffiths, founding director of the nonprofit Then Try This. Inspired by a childhood spent coding pixels next to his mother’s traditional floor loom, Dave unpacks the deep historical links between textiles and programming, arguing that technology is never neutral and that true innovation relies on grassroots, participatory design.

They explore brilliant local projects like Sonic Kayaks, which use underwater soundscapes to map marine data for visually impaired paddlers, and Nurgle, an accessible game tracking public health trends using specialized audio cues. Finally, they reveal the hidden, feminist histories of computing, showing how modern microchips directly owe their legacy to the complex creativity of Navajo weavers. Tune in to discover why the future of tech belongs to frugal, community-led innovations rather than just the next iteration of GPT.

Reading List:

• Then Try This
• Indigenous Circuits: Navajo Women and the Racialization of Early Electronic Manufacture
• Queer In AI: A Case Study in Community-Led Participatory AI
• Sensing Bodies: Engaging Postcolonial Histories through More-than-Human Interactions

Edited by: Meibel Dabodabo