Biography

I received my BA in History in 2007 from Cambridge University, before completing a Master’s and Ph.D. in Anthropology from University College London. Since then I have taught anthropology at UCL and Cambridge, and held visiting research appointments at Columbia, Cambridge, LMU Munich and Humboldt University. I am currently based in the Department of Digital Humanities at King’s College London.

Over this period I have raised approximately £2m in public sponsorship from the European Research Council, the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the Economic and Social Sciences Research Council, and the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland. In 2018, I received the Early Career Award from the European Association of Social Anthropoloigists for this essay on hierarchy in Germany.

My influences are varied, however I situate myself most comfortably as a descendant of the Manchester School of Social Anthropology. I am especially inspired by its intellectual (and political) ambition to connect large-scale social transformations to the smallest human encounters, and to explode colonial hierarchies and their epistemic effects.

Since 2012 I have been fascinated by the seismic changes that have arrived with the digital, and the convergence of political and digital anthropology is now my principal focus. I also seek ways to translate scholarship into pathways for more vital and generous forms of post-digital life across the world, through activity with centres and collectives. This is a work in progress.

My main upbringing was in Glasgow, Scotland, and I am of Iranian, Canadian, and British extraction. I live in Cambridge, U.K, with my husband Richard, and my children Daria and Jasper.