I am an anthropologist studying the psychosocial impact of digital technologies.
I currently teach at UCL on the Digital Anthropology MSc.
I have previously taught at Goldsmiths, Birkbeck, Roehampton and LSBU.
My current research focuses on ADHD, digital technologies and neurodiversity.
My previous research was on self-organisation, horizontal networks, commons and urban activism.
My publications and presentations are below.
Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in online and offline settings with people who identify with the category of ADHD, discourses on the attention economy, and anthropological theories of traps, this article offers a framing of ADHD as a vernacular anthropology: a theory of being human in the contemporary world. ADHD, and related content on TikTok, is understood as an analytic category deployed in the collective understanding of human being and becoming in digitally entangled worlds, and a process of collective pedagogy concerning the conditions and possibilities of life. From this point of view, ADHD content on TikTok can be seen as the formation of pedagogical communities of care which emerge in the cracks of the attention economy and algorithmic agency.
Journal Article
Teaching Anthropology [special issue: TikTok Ethnography Collective]
2023
Collectively produced and edited volume documenting a process of self-organisation at a social centre in London.
Edited Book
Los Angeles: JOAAP Press
2019
Ethnographic chapter on process of self-organisation at a social centre in London.
Book Chapter in Urban Appropriation Strategies: Exploring Space-making Practices in Contemporary European Cityscapes
Berlin: transcript-verlang
2018
The text draws upon philosophy, ethnography, literature and natural science to suggest that life and death are best understood not in opposition, but as continuous tendencies acting upon one another. Austin Locke argues that the failure to give nuanced consideration to the connections between the living and nonliving devalues both life and death. In doing so, he suggests that our ability to respond to the challenges of environmental degradation, technological advancement, and the dominance of economic logic depend in part on more fluid understandings of the relationship between life and death.
Book
London: Repeater
2016
Response to Susan Lepselter's The Resonance of Unseen Things: Poetics, Power, Captivity, and UFOs in the American Uncanny. Part of the 2018 Bateson Book Prize Forum
Book response
Cultural Anthropology
2018
Review of AAA2017 panel An Uncertain Rush of Energy: A Discussion with William Mazzarella on The Mana of Mass Society.
Panel review
Cultural Anthropology
2018
Interview with Kathleen Stewart. Co-authored with Andreas Romero.
Interview
Cultural Anthropology
2017
Interview with William Mazzarella. Co-authored with Andres Romero.
Interview
Cultural Anthropology
2017
Response to Lucas Bessire's Behold the Black Caiman: A Chronicle of Ayoreo Life. Part of the 2016 Bateson Book Prize Forum
Book response
Cultural Anthropology
2016
Teaching tools on the topic of 'refusal'.
Teaching tools
Cultural Anthropology
2016
Think piece on co-design and collaboration as part of the series 'Place: who belongs here'. Co-authored with Lawrence Dodd
Think piece
Glass Door
2016
Article on theory of possibility in urban environments for Wick Zine.
Article
RUrban
2014
How are contemporary economic, political, and psychosocial crises negotiated through TikTok and social media? What social and digital practices emerge in times of crisis? Which networks and actors become relevant through such negotiations? And what might this mean for anthropology?
Conference panel
SOAS: Assocation of Social Anthropologists Annual Conference
2023
This panel explores possibilities for reconfiguring academia through ethics of generosity. Emerging from the question—can we apply the same analytic generosity to academics and students as we do to fieldwork participants?—we invite papers exploring generosity in ethnographic and analytic settings.
Conference panel
University of East Anglia: Association of Social Anthropologists Annual Conferene
2019
Presentation of ongoing research on ADHD and digital technologies. Part of Material, Visual and Digital Cultures Spring 2024 Seminar Series, UCL
Conference presentation
Panel: The Anthropology of Attention
2024
Ethnographic engagement with ADHD and social media. Part of ASA 2023: An Unwell World?: Anthropology in Speculative Mode, SOAS
Conference presentation
Panel: The Anthropology of Attention
2023
Methodological proposal for anthropological and psychosocial research on conspiracy theory. Part of What do we do About Conspiracy Theories? Conference 2019, The National University of Ireland, Maynooth
Conference presentation
Panel: The Driving Powers of Conspiracy Theories and Conspiracy Theories as Driving Forces
2019
Proposal for model of academic practice founded on an ethic of generosity.
Conference presentation
University of East Anglia: ASA
2019
Seminar on PhD research on self-organised social center in London
Research seminar
Goldsmiths Anthropology Department Autumn Research Seminar
2018
Conference presentation on self-organisation, artistic intervention and ethnographic conceptualism
Conference presentation
British Museum: RAI
2018
Presentation on diagrams and drawing produced as process of self-organised political activism
Conference presentation
University of Oxford: ASA
2018
Presentation on urban activism, commons and the right to the city
Conference presentation
UCL: Anthropology in London
2017
Presentation on urban activism, commons and uncertainty
Conference presentation
UCL: Anthropology in London
2017
Presentation on care in urban activism
Conference presentation
Washington DC: AAA
2017
Presentation on limitations to horizontalism in urban activism
Conference presentation
University of Kassel: Urban Appropriation Strategies Conference
2016