Technocreep and the Politics of Things not Seen

Neda Atanasoski (Edited by), Nassim Parvin (Edited by)

9781478031253

Paperback / softback, published 31 May 2025

320 pages, 61 color illustrations
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.1 cm, 0.445 kg

“Successfully rethinking the stance that certain technologies go too far into our private lives and bodies, this stellar collection opens up intellectual space for alternative perspectives that will enliven many debates in science and technology studies and beyond. It exposes the exceptional limits of liberal critique of privacy and the human when faced with technologies that threaten the divide between the human and nonhuman, surveillance and privacy, and the intimate and economic. A well-conceptualized, exciting, and much-needed intervention.” - Felicity Amaya Schaeffer, author of (Unsettled Borders: The Militarized Science of Surveillance on Sacred Indigenous Land)

New and emerging technologies, especially ones that infiltrate intimate spaces, relations, homes, and bodies, are often referred to as creepy in media and political discourses. In Technocreep and the Politics of Things Not Seen, Neda Atanasoski and Nassim Parvin introduce a feminist theory of creep that they substantiate through critical engagement with smart homes, smart dust, smart desires, and smart forests toward dreams of feminist futures. Contributing authors further illuminate what is otherwise obscured, assumed, or dismissed in characterizations of technology as creepy or creeping. Considering diverse technologies such as border surveillance and China’s credit system to sexcams and home assistants, the volume’s essays and artworks demonstrate that the potentials and pitfalls of artificial intelligence and digital and robotic technologies cannot be assessed through binaries of seeing/being seen, privacy/surveillance, or harmful/useful. Together, their multifaceted and multimodal approach transcends such binaries, accounting for technological relations that exceed sight to include touch, presence, trust, and diverse modes of collectivity. As such, this volume develops creep as a feminist analytic and creative mode on par with technology’s complex entanglement with intimate, local, and global politics.

Contributors. Neda Atanasoski, Katherine Bennett, IvÁn Chaar LÓpez, Sushmita Chatterjee, Hayri Dortdivanlioglu, Sanaz Haghani, Jacob Hagelberg, Jennifer Hamilton, Antonia HernÁndez, Marjan Khatibi, Tamara Kneese, Erin McElroy, Vernelle A. A. Noel, Jessica Olivares, Nassim Parvin, Beth Semel, Renee Shelby, Tanja Wiehn

Prologue 
ix
Acknowledgments 
xi
Interview with ChatGPT 
xv
Introduction / Neda Atanasoski and Nassim Parvin 
1
1. Maintenance Play / Antonia HernÁ
ndez 
27
Artist Contribution: “
The Embodied Self”
/ Marjan Khatibi 
39
Interlude: Smart Dust / Neda Atanasoski and Nassim Parvin 
43
2. Uncivil Technoscience: Anti-immigration and Citizen Science in Boundary Making / IvÁ
n Chaar LÓ
pez 
51
3. Hesitancy, Solidarity, and Whiteness: The Limits and Possibilities of Rape-Reporting Apps / Renee Shelby 
67 

4. Undoing Landlord Technologies: Beyond the Propertied Logics of the Pandemic Past and Present / Erin McElroy 
79
Artist Contribution: 
“
Thousand Dreams of Yamur”
/ Hayri Dortdivanlioglu 
95
Interlude: Smart Homes 
/ Neda Atanasoski and Nassim Parvin 
99
5. 
“
Reading the Room”
: Messy Contradictions in the Datafied Home / Tanja Wiehn 
113
6. Surveillance Vigilantes: Property, Porch Pirates, and Paranoia on Nextdoor / Jessica L. Olivares 
127
7. Alexa, Disability, and the Politics of Things Not Apprehended / Jennifer A. Hamilton 
149
Artist Contribution: 
“
Masks, Mirrors, Light and Shadow”
/ Vernelle A. A. Noel 
161
Interlude: Smart Desires / 
Neda Atanasoski and Nassim Parvin 
163
8. Tracking for Two: Surveillance and Self-Care in Pregnancy Apps / Tamara Kneese 
175
9. 
“
So Creepy It Must Be True!”
: Techno-Orientalism, Technonationalism, and the Social Credit Imaginary / Jacob Hagelberg 
189
10. Resistant Resonances: Vocal Biomarkers, Transductive Labor, and the Politics of Things Not Heard / Beth Semel 
207
Artist Contribution: 
“
Streetsmarts”
by Katherine Bennett 
223
Interlude: Smart Forests / 
Neda Atanasoski and Nassim Parvin 
225
11. Animal-Vegetal-Technology: Creeping Categories / Sushmita Chatterjee 
239
Artist Contribution: 
“
Close Your Eyes”
by Sanaz Haghani 
255
Epilogue: Dreaming Feminist Futures / 
Neda Atanasoski and Nassim Parvin 
257
Bibliography 
265
Contributors 
283
Index