Paper short abstract:

As part of the panel, I reflect on digital anthropology as a publicly engaged anthropology from its emergence. Drawing on ten years of experience across British and Australian traditions, I consider ethnographic practice and writing from social media to activism and creative/non-scholarly works.

Paper long abstract:

As part of the roundtable, I will reflect on digital anthropology as a publicly engaged anthropology from its emergence as a sub-discipline. The mobility of mobile phones and sociality of social media allows for the assemblage of visual content, digital practices, interviews, researcher and participant reflection as ethnographic inquiry to allow for a deeper understanding of a distant geographical or social site, and the meanings they generate. Such an assemblage is already contributing to ‘writing culture’ (Clifford and Marcus, 1986) and to facilitate anthropology in ‘explaining itself to outside itself’ (Eriksen, 2006). Ethnographies are no longer confined to the thick descriptions of monographs or published journal articles; they have been made accessible through websites, online courses and short films, often made in collaboration with participants.

Drawing on ten years of experience across British and Australian digital anthropology traditions, I contribute to the roundtable discussion by considering ethnographic practice and writing from uses of social media to activism, to creative and non-scholarly outputs. In particular, I draw on insights gained from the globally comparative Why We Post project (University College London, 2012-2026), where integrating new modes of anthropological research dissemination using digital media platforms was integral to the project’s design. I further consider the implications of current circumstances of the immobilities and disruptions caused to ‘traditional’ research dissemination due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the consequent increase in engagement with digital technologies.