| Sumario: | In this article, I employ perspectives from media archaeology and genealogical analysis to examine the role of algorithms in creating political affect. I am concerned with the role of algorithms in generating, and not simply archiving, action. Algorithmic archaeologies enable us to track histories that are often forgotten or disavowed. Many of these histories are tied to empire, conquest, and warfare; some are intimately imbricated with prior forms of surveillance, the identification and marking of bodies as commodities and/or as dangerous, and formations of racial capitalism that are at once transnational and local. All algorithms are about creating and mobilizing taxonomies through, for instance, the formation of bodies of knowledge (data) that are selectively compiled, archived, and mined to specific ends. In seeking out hidden histories of algorithms, my objective is to push back against universalist and Eurocentric paradigms.
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