Attention can be anthropologically theorized as either technologies or techniques

Evidence

But how does this process of attentional action work in more concrete ethnographic terms? How does attention exercise its considerable sway over social life in particular contexts, and how do we most effectively theorize it anthropologically? To address these questions, we have proposed a heuristic contrast between attentional technologies and techniques. Accordingly, our discussion of anthropological scholarship on digital and datafied worlds has focused on attentional technologies in Gell’s sense, that is, an underdetermined (“abductive”) molding of agency by means of purpose-built sociomaterial infrastructures acting independently from human subjects. Then, in our assessment of work on ritual forms and religious experience, we introduce the notion of attentional techniques, where the scaffolding of attentionality is controlled by and ontologically inseparable from conscious and motivated subjects. — Annual Review of Anthropology contributors (⚠ verify author line), The Political Economy of Attention, 63

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the core heuristic contrast between attentional technologies (infrastructural, agent-independent) and attentional techniques (subject-controlled, intentional).
• XREF: The technologies/techniques split echoes Gell’s concept of distributed agency and also seems to parallel the platform-vs-practice distinction common in digital media studies. — connects to: Anthropology has studied attention mostly implicitly, not as an explicit topic — Annual Review of Anthropology contributors (⚠ verify author line), The Political Economy of Attention, 10; Attention’s slipperiness itself makes it a subject for ethnographic study. — Annual Review of Anthropology contributors (⚠ verify author line), The Political Economy of Attention, 13; Attentional scaffolds controllable by individuals constitute techniques of attention. — Annual Review of Anthropology contributors (⚠ verify author line), The Political Economy of Attention, 45

Related

• Anthropology has studied attention mostly implicitly, not as an explicit topic (similarity 0.90)
• Attentional scaffolds controllable by individuals constitute techniques of attention. (similarity 0.85)
• Attention is an activity that forms persons, not a resource that platforms act upon (similarity 0.85)
• Attention is socially and materially mediated, not just a scarce mental resource (similarity 0.85)
• Attention’s slipperiness itself makes it a subject for ethnographic study. (similarity 0.82)
• Anthropologists themselves operate within political economies of attention. (similarity 0.82)
• Attention has long been treated as valuable and manipulable, not only digitally. (similarity 0.82)
• Attention functions as a political economy embedded in specific temporal contexts (similarity 0.81)
• The line between forced and free attention is itself a political question needing investigation (similarity 0.81)
• Attention has emerged as a site of political, economic, and moral struggle (similarity 0.80)
• Attention-economy analysis must be reframed within a broader attention ecosophy (similarity 0.80)
• Digital technologies replace human attentional energy with electrical energy. (similarity 0.80)
• Attention-maximizing technologies can reduce rather than increase user control over attention (similarity 0.80)
• Annual Review of Anthropology contributors (⚠ verify author line) — The Political Economy of Attention (similarity 0.79)
• Attention is a socially produced and politically governed resource, not merely a scarce one. (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• Attentional scaffolds controllable by individuals constitute techniques of attention. #exemplifies (0.92) — Annual Review of Anthropology contributors (⚠ verify author line), The Political Economy of Attention, 45