Join us tomorrow in CSE2 271 for Matias Centeno's talk *Reshaping rural borders: youth, ICT and socio-technical implications of Covid-19 pandemic in family farming * Abstract: Since decades ago, digital change has been a heterogeneous process affecting modalities of communication, management and organization. In family farming, the main activity of the agricultural sector in the world (Graeub et. al., 2016), the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) sit across the intersection of crucial concerns that have surrounded this ancient human activity for centuries. The agricultural setting is a relevant field to think about contemporary youth, their trajectories, dilemmas and strategies in an interconnected and uncertain world. The research is based on the assumption that, fueled by the integration of ICT in different spheres of life, young people are configuring new experiences that defy the frontiers of agricultural activity. At the same time they are boosting the revision of some historical categories, including rurality, agricultural practices, rural youth and farming culture, among others. The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated unprecedented transformations. It has highlighted the digital acceleration in daily life and the dematerialization of the economy. This process is expanding gaps that exist within fragile economic and political cycles as well as the inequities in technological and socio-cultural shifts. The research seeks to understand the socio-technical trajectories of ICT in family farming and their socio-cultural configurations in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic. Situating young people as central actors, the project will track the communication modalities of youth in family farming and the developments they have drawn from digital technologies. Problematizing agriculture and its territorial fabric from the social sciences, in particular from the encounter between sociology and technology, represents a relevant opportunity for technological and rural development studies aimed to better understand the spread of digital culture in agricultural life. Research contributions can also allow new insights about family farming, presenting it not only as a productive activity but above all, as a sociocultural dimension. The rurban approach may introduce a newfangled insight for rural studies in the United States, allowing new academic synergies with Latin American studies. -- Website: https://kurti.sh/ Public Key: https://flowcrypt.com/pub/kheimerl@cs.washington.edu