Beyond Cultural Objects: Algorithms as Ontological Mediators

This article addresses a fundamental limitation in contemporary anthropological approaches to algorithmic systems: their reliance on representational frameworks that treat computation as mediating pre-existing social relations rather than participating in their ongoing constitution. Drawing on the ontological turn in anthropology, agential realism, and processual philosophy, I develop an analytical framework that recognizes algorithms as ontological mediators—entities whose operations participate directly in bringing into being the subjects, temporalities, and social relations they appear merely to process. I introduce three core concepts: ontological mediation, recursive capture, and algorithmic territorialization, supported by methodological innovations in processual ethnography. These tools offer anthropologists new approaches for understanding how computational systems participate in the ongoing constitution of social worlds while remaining attentive to lived experience and cultural meaning.