Algorithms and radicalization: A technopolitical perspective from anthropology

Abstract

Since Jair Bolsonaro’s meteoric rise to the presidency in 2018, something unusual has occurred. Researchers and professionals in fields such as political science and journalism have noted—sometimes with a degree of surprise—how anthropology has been ahead of other disciplines in perceiving and analyzing these phenomena. This is usually linked to the central role of ethnography as a methodology, in which the anthropologist “is there,” immersed in the flows of ordinary people’s social lives and therefore able to detect trends that will only later erupt onto the surface of public debate.