This essay outlines how the ‘hack’ might offer a model for anthropological research in the face of the distributed relations evidenced by digital data. The argument builds on fieldwork with citizens and activists and looks at their attempts to understand and make use of the data produced by energy sensors and monitors. Drawing on their experiences, I suggest that ‘the hack’ emerges as an important form of practice that helps people navigate the place of data in social relations. Taking the hack not just as ethnographic observation but also as a methodological proposition, I use my ethnographic material on the practice of the hack to reconsider the anthropological challenge of doing ethnography of processes that are only perceptible through numerical or digital data. To explore the value of the hack for anthropology, I introduce an example of an attempt to do ethnography in the mode of the hack. The essay ends with reflections on how the hack might provide us with new ways of getting to grips with the anthropological implications of systemic and emergent relations that are both brought to light and remade through data.

中文翻译：

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黑客人类学

这篇文章概述了面对数字数据证明的分布式关系时，“黑客”如何为人类学研究提供模型。该论点建立在与公民和激进主义者的实地考察的基础之上，着眼于他们理解和利用能量传感器和监测器产生的数据的尝试。根据他们的经验，我建议“黑客”作为一种重要的实践形式出现，可以帮助人们在社会关系中导航数据的位置。我不仅将人种学视为人类学的观察，而且将其作为方法论的命题，我将人种学材料运用到人种学的实践中，以重新考虑人类学方面的挑战，即对只能通过数字或数字数据才能感知到的人类学过程进行人种学研究。要探索黑客行为对人类学的价值，我将介绍一个尝试以黑客方式进行人种志的示例。文章的结尾是关于黑客如何为我们提供新的方式来处理系统的和紧急的关系的人类学含义的反思，系统和紧急关系既通过数据又通过数据得以再现。