In this episode of The Good Robot, Eleanor Drage speaks with Cassandra Hartblay, anthropologist, writer, playwright, and author of Access Vernaculars: Disability and Accessible Design in Contemporary Russia.

They explore disability, accessibility, technology, and inclusive design in contemporary Russia, examining how the unique political context shapes coping mechanisms for disabled people living in inaccessible and poorly maintained cities.

We also discuss the Sochi 2014 Olympics and Paralympics, disability advocacy, and the relationship between war and disability. Through stories of wheelchair users, activists, architects, and everyday experiences of inaccessible environments, the episode asks what it really means to create technology and design that enables people to move, participate, and live with greater freedom.

Reading List:

• Access Vernaculars: Disability and Accessible Design in Contemporary Russia
• Gleaning for Communism: The Soviet Socialist Household in Theory and Practice by Xenia Cherkaev
• Unmaking Russia's Abortion Culture: Family Planning and the Struggle for a Liberal Biopolitics by Michele Rivkin-Fish
• Keywords for Ethnography and Design, Cultural Anthropology website
• The Question of Access: Disability, Space, Meaning by Tanya Titchkosky
• Friction: An Ethnography of Global Connection by Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing

Edited by: Meibel Dabodabo

What does it mean to care for people and worlds that cannot simply be “fixed”? In Part 2 of this conversation, Eleanor Drage speaks with Kelly Fritsch and Anne McGuire, authors of Broken Worlds, Disabled Kin: Strategies for Collective Survival, about disability justice, collective care, maintenance, palliation, reproductive technology, and risk.

They explore how mutual aid and disability culture offer alternatives to social abandonment, why palliation can help us live with loss and uncertainty, and how ideas about genetic and psychiatric risk can reinforce ableism and eugenic thinking. The episode asks how we can move beyond “fixing” individual bodies toward building more accessible, supportive, and just worlds.

Reading List:

• Broken Worlds, Disabled Kin: Strategies for Collective Survival by Kelly Fritsch & Anne McGuire
• “Crip Technoscience Manifesto” by Aimi Hamraie & Kelly Fritsch
• “Crip Technoscience” by Kelly Fritsch and Suze Berkhout
• War on Autism: On the Cultural Logic of Normative Violence by Anne McGuire
• Disability Injustice: Confronting Criminalization in Canada edited by Kelly Fritsch and colleagues

Edited by: Meibel Dabodabo

What does it mean to live in a world that is already broken, and what can disability justice teach us about creating more livable futures? In this episode of The Good Robot, Eleanor Drage speaks with Kelly Fritsch and Anne McGuire, authors of Broken Worlds, Disabled Kin: Strategies for Collective Survival, about disability, technology, accessibility, care, maintenance, and collective survival.

They explore how technologies from ramps to genetic medicine are shaped by social, political, and economic systems. The conversation takes us from why mainstream tech innovation can distract us from maintenance and repair, how "brokenness" is experienced unevenly, and what AI means for accessibility and disability justice. At its heart, this episode asks a powerful question: What are we maintaining, what are we repairing, for whom, and toward what kind of world?

Reading List:

• Broken Worlds, Disabled Kin: Strategies for Collective Survival by Kelly Fritsch & Anne McGuire
• “Crip Technoscience Manifesto” by Aimi Hamraie & Kelly Fritsch
• “Crip Technoscience” by Kelly Fritsch and Suze Berkhout
• War on Autism: On the Cultural Logic of Normative Violence by Anne McGuire
• Disability Injustice: Confronting Criminalization in Canada edited by Kelly Fritsch and colleagues

Edited by: Meibel Dabodabo

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 Nergal, 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

Join host Eleanor Drage and guest Tara Merk as they explore how community-owned data centers can revolutionize digital ownership. Discover innovative models that challenge big tech's dominance, promoting sustainability and local empowerment. Learn from Germany's success in renewable energy and cooperative governance. This episode reimagines internet ownership, focusing on community needs for a fairer, greener future.

Reading list:

• Tara Merk’s LinkedIn
• Community Data Centers
• The making of critical data center studies
• Data infrastructure studies on an unequal planet
• Getting into fights with data centers: Or, a modest proposal for reframing the climate politics of ICT
• Data Center Opposition Report

Edited by: Meibel Dabodabo

Can cloud infrastructure be owned and governed by the people, and not just Big Tech? Friederike von Franqué, policy advisor at Wikimedia Germany, reveals how feminist principles and decentralized infrastructure are transforming the internet from a corporate service into a public commons.

In this episode, we explore Friederike’s work with Wikimedia Germany. From the energy-intensive data centers of Frankfurt to Stockholm’s municipally owned fibre infrastructure, we examine the struggle to build technology that prioritizes the common good over corporate profit. Friederike explains why hyperscalers are not always the solution, and why we need environmental accountability and community-driven design.

This conversation pulls back the curtain on the hidden data systems powering our lives, offering a provocative roadmap for a more equitable and sustainable digital future.

Reading List:

• Friederike von Franque website
• "Enough of the Billionaires and Their Big Tech. 'Frugal Tech' Will Build Us All a Better World": An article by Eleanor Drage.
• Wikimedia Foundation / Wikimedia Germany
• “Wikipedia Is Running On Its Own Metal: The Power and Limits of Self-Hosted Infrastructure”by Wikimedia Europe
• Data centres are reshaping the global investment landscape by UN Trade and Development (UNCTAD)

Edited by: Meibel Dabodabo