Sharing Histories at the Intersection of Computer Science and Anthropology

This paper presents a critical reflection on interdisciplinary collaborations that seek to guide technical application by applying explanatory theory. It proposes that quotidian aspects of disciplinary specialization can present obstacles to interdisciplinary collaborations. This refers not to highly abstruse theory or complex techniques, but rather to the disciplinary lore and taken for granted assumptions that students and faculty trained in discrete fields master informally and articulate effortlessly. As a remedy it suggests sharing accounts of disciplinary lore at the outset and across the breadth of collaborative work. As an illustration, it develops several historical narratives of collaborations between computer scientists and anthropologists, from cybernetics in the mid twentieth century to a twenty-first century project combining the explanatory theory of human behavioral ecology with human computer interaction.