New Media Research Network

New Media + Anthropology Talk

The Department of Anthropology will be hosted a talk by Daniel Miller, an anthropologist researching the impacts of new media. From the announcement:

Daniel Miller is currently Professor of Material Culture, Department of Anthropology, University College London. Without hesitation, I can say that he is THE most well-known and prolific anthropologist who rigorously combines sociocultural studies and arachaeology in our discipline. Recently, he has turned his prolific interest to the issues of new media and began publishing inspiring works new media as part of 'material culture.' Most recently, he conducted a project that examines the impact of new media technologies such as the mobile phone and internet on poverty and development in Jamaica, Ghana, India and South Africa. The results are being written up in a volume for Berg called The Cell Phone: An Anthropology of Communications. In a recent paper he also examined the potential of these media to teach schoolchildren about their responsibilities as consumers to producers. Another project being explored for the future is the study of communication technologies in maintaining relationships of love and care amongst migrant and diaspora communities. Other related previous titles include: The Internet: An Ethnographic Approach; The Anthropology of Media; Fashion and Anxiety; The Dialectics of Shopping; Car Cultures; Consumption; Possesssions, etc.

- Hoon Song

Schedule: Monday, April 3

• 12:15-1:15pm, Informal Department Seminar, The Impact of the Mobile Phone on Poverty in Jamaica and the Concept of Value. Room, TBA.


• 4:30-6:00pm, Public Colloquium Lecture, "Beyond Social Science - Social Reproduction in South London." Room, TBA.