2nd Edition

Digital Anthropology

Edited By Haidy Geismar, Hannah Knox Copyright 2021
    348 Pages 15 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    348 Pages 15 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    Digital Anthropology, 2nd Edition explores how human and digital can be explored in relation to one another within issues as diverse as social media use, virtual worlds, hacking, quantified self, blockchain, digital environmentalism and digital representation. The book challenges the prevailing moral universal of “the digital age” by exploring emergent anxieties about the global spread of new technological forms, the cultural qualities of digital experience, critically examining the intersection of the digital to new concepts and practices across a wide range of fields from design to politics.

    In this fully revised edition, Digital Anthropology reveals how the intense scrutiny of ethnography can overturn assumptions about the impact of digital culture and reveal its profound consequences for everyday life around the world. Combining case studies with theoretical discussion in an engaging style that conveys a passion for new frontiers of enquiry within anthropological study, this will be essential reading for students and scholars interested in theory of anthropology, media and information studies, communication studies and sociology. With a brand-new Introduction from editors Haidy Geismar and Hannah Knox, as well as an abridged version of the original Introduction by Heather Horst and Daniel Miller, in conjunction with new chapters on hacking and digitizing environments, amongst others, and fully revised chapters throughout, this will bring the field-defining overview of digital anthropology fully up to date.

    1. Introduction 2.0

    Haidy Geismar and Hannah Knox

    PART I: Positioning

    2. Six Principles for a Digital Anthropology

    Daniel Miller and Heather Horst

    3. Rethinking Digital Anthropology

    Tom Boellstorff

    PART II: Socializing Digital Anthropology

    4. The Anthropology of Mobile Phones

    Heather A. Horst

    5. The Anthropology of Social Media

    Daniel Miller

    6. Diverse Digital Worlds

    Bart Barendregt

    7. Disability in the Digital Age

    Faye Ginsburg

    8. Devices and Selves: From self-exit to self-fashioning 

    Natasha Schüll

    PART III: Politicizing Digital Anthropology

    9. Digital Politics

    John Postill

    10. Traversing the Infrastructures of Digital Life

    Hannah Knox

    11. Blockchain

    Bill Maurer

    12. Digital Economy and Labour

    Ilana Gershon and Iris Bull

    PART IV: Designing Digital Anthropology

    13. Design for and against Digital Anthropology

    Adam Drazin

    14. Museum + Digital = ?

    Haidy Geismar

    15. The Role of the Digital Anthropologist in Citizen Science and Public Participation Mapping Projects: A case study or two

    David Jeevendrampillai with Gillian Conquest

    16. Digital Futures Anthropology

    Sarah Pink

    Biography

    Haidy Geismar is Professor of Anthropology at UCL, UK.

    Hannah Knox is Associate Professor of Anthropology at UCL, UK.