Glitching the University Machine

Abstract

In this piece we explore how to return anthropological study to common use by way of Hilal and Petti’s (2019) use of al masha - a cultivation and reactivation of the commons. In doing so we recognise that our point of departure is one of colonial permanence, as anthropological study is tied to the discipline and its colonial disciplining, which in turn is tied to the University Machine and its infrastructure. In enacting colonial permanence and holding up its decolonial facade it is the sociality of the infrastructure that we have chosen to focus on. We argue that it is in moments of refusal to engage and challenge infrastructural failures of the University Machine, that we find a fugitive poetic potential to glitch (Berlant, 2016; Luchkiw, 2016; Russell, 2020) anthropological study to common use.