This talk presents an historical ethnography of the concept of participation, providing a genealogical account of how participation has become central to our understanding of democratic institutions, social arrangements, and the technologies and infrastructures we build and inhabit today.

 

Christopher M. Kelty is a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles who has a joint appointment at the Institute for Society & Genetics and Information Studies. His research focuses on the cultural significance of information technology, especially in science and engineering. He is the author of Two Bits: The Cultural Significance of Free Software (Duke University Press, 2008), as well as numerous articles on open source and free software.