I trained in social anthropology at Goldsmiths College, with a PhD project which took a practice-oriented approach to the commons through an ethnography of a self-organised social centre in London. Since then, I have worked across several academic fields including sociology, criminology, architecture, psycho-social studies and philosophy whilst keeping one foot in the anthropological world. My current research areas include technological infrastructures for alternative socio-economic systems, self-organised politics, algorithmic agency, attention, ADHD, decentralised networks, blockchain technology and conspiracy theory.

I was first drawn to TikTok as a field site for an ongoing research project on the psycho-social and anthropological significance and implications of contemporary conspiracy theory. Recent years have seen an apparent increase in conspiratorial thinking and conspiracy mediated through a range of digital platforms. This research seeks to understand why conspiratorial thinking appears to have become so prominent, making use of analytic frameworks from anthropological thought and psycho-social studies.

My ongoing engagement with TikTok also drew my attention to the apparent prominence on the platform of content related to ADHD. As someone who was diagnosed with ADHD in their early twenties and has spent many years unpacking and thinking through the meaning of such a diagnosis, I was particularly drawn to this content and began to enquire as to why this psychiatric definition seems to have such current prominence and significance on TikTok. I am now seeking to think through what the role of the categories of ADHD is in terms of people’s vernacular anthropology—that is: how does the category of ADHD inform, effect and impact people’s understanding of what it means to be human in the contemporary world?

My research on TikTok can be divided into three interlinked themes

• Conspiracy theory

• Algorithmic agency

• ADHD as vernacular anthropology

I am a Lecturer in Digital Anthropology at UCL, where I convene a module on the Anthropology of Social Media and contribute to teaching on Digital Anthropology, Introduction to Material and Visual Cultures, and Being Human.