Liliana Gil

I am an Assistant Professor of Comparative Studies at The Ohio State University. My teaching and research focus on postcolonial and feminist studies of science and technology, with an emphasis on Brazil and its transnational connections.

My first book project, Improvised Tech: Tactics in an Unequal World, examines technological improvisation as a situated and politically ambivalent tactic for navigating inequality. Drawing on long-term fieldwork across community technology projects, cellphone repair schools, electronics factories, and activist networks, the book asks what happens when “making do” is reframed as innovation. Rather than treating improvisation as inherently subversive or liberatory, I show how its value depends on the people and institutions involved, the material conditions in which it takes place, and the circuits through which it is celebrated, captured, or condemned. You can read about some of this work in American Anthropologist (“A Fablab at the Periphery”) and Third World Quarterly (“Becoming a Repair Entrepreneur”).

Previously, I received a Ph.D. in Anthropology from The New School and worked as a lecturer at the National University of Singapore. I also completed a master’s in Medical Anthropology at the University of Coimbra with a visiting period at the University of California, Berkeley. In my thesis, I wrote about artistic practices engaging frontier areas of science and emerging technologies.

My scholarship has been supported by various organizations, including the Fulbright Program, the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology, the Wenner-Gren Foundation, the National Science Foundation, and the American Council of Learned Societies.

As a first-generation scholar, I honor the opportunities I have had in academia by supporting others on similar journeys. I also value interdisciplinary collaboration and welcome conversations across fields. Feel free to reach out at gils.1 [at] osu.edu.