[Air-L] New Book: Digital Anthropology

[Heather Horst]

Dear AoIR,

It was great to see many of you at IR13 in Salford. For those who weren't
able to make it, we wanted to let you know that our new edited volume,
Digital Anthropology, is now out.

We have a fantastic group of contributors - Bart Barendregt, Tom
Boellstorff, Stefana Broadbent, Lane DeNicola, Adam Drazin, Haidy
Geismar, Faye Ginsburg, Heather Horst, Jelena Karanovic, Thomas
Malaby, Danny Miller, John Postill & Jo Tacchi - and a broad range of
topics that we think will be of interest to members of the AoIR community.

Details about the book are included below.

Heather and Danny

*Digital Anthropology*

Heather A. Horst<http://www.bergpublishers.com/?tabid=3213&st=advanced&author=Heather%20A.%20Horst>
 and Daniel Miller<http://www.bergpublishers.com/?tabid=3213&st=advanced&author=Daniel%20Miller>,
Editors

Oct 2012, 328pp, 9 bw illus, 9780857852908
http://www.bergpublishers.com/?TabId=15894 (also available as an e-book)

Anthropology has two main tasks: to understand what it is to be human and
to examine how humanity is manifested differently in the diversity of
culture. These tasks have gained new impetus from the extraordinary rise of
the digital. This book brings together several key anthropologists working
with digital culture to demonstrate just how productive an anthropological
approach to the digital has already become.

Through a range of case studies from Facebook to Second Life to Google
Earth, Digital Anthropology explores how human and digital can be defined
in relation to one another, from avatars and disability; cultural
differences in how we use social networking sites or practise religion; the
practical consequences of the digital for politics, museums, design, space
and development to new online world and gaming communities. The book also
explores the moral universe of the digital, from new anxieties to
open-source ideals. Digital Anthropology reveals how only the intense
scrutiny of ethnography can overturn assumptions about the impact of
digital culture and reveal its profound consequences for everyday life.

Combining the clarity of a textbook with an engaging style which conveys a
passion for these new frontiers of enquiry, this book is essential reading
for students and scholars of anthropology, media studies, communication
studies, cultural studies and sociology.

*Reviews of Digital Anthropology*

“Digital Anthropology is a beautifully curated book that reveals the
importance of anthropological insight for understanding different aspects
of networked society, from the spectacular to the mundane. In this
formative book, Horst and Miller call attention to the ways in which
digital technologies make visible our humanity.”

danah boyd, Senior Researcher at Microsoft Research

“This remarkable volume provides a provocative survey of an emergent
territory we are all coming to inhabit. Broad in coverage yet acutely
attentive to the particulars, offering multiple perspectives yet elegantly
integrative, and epistemologically bracing while deeply anthropological,
this is a work of lasting value for experts and non-experts alike.”

Don Brenneis, Professor of Anthropology, University of California, Santa
Cruz

“Researchers and teachers alike have long been waiting for this invaluable
guide to the tricky terrain of digital anthropology. Demonstrating what
anthropology brings to the study of the digital and vice versa, Horst and
Miller's book provides a firm launching-off point for new investigations of
the remediations, remodulations, and reconfigurations associated with
digital media and technology.”

Paul Dourish, Professor of Informatics, University of California, Irvine

*Contents*

*Section A: Introduction*

The Digital and The Human

- Daniel Miller (University College London, UK) and Heather A. Horst (RMIT
University, Australia)

*Section B: Positioning Digital Anthropology*

Rethinking 'Digital' Anthropology

- Tom Boellstorff (University of California, Irvine, USA)

New Media Technologies in Everyday Life

- Heather A. Horst (RMIT University, Australia)

Geomedia: the Reassertion of Space Within Digital Culture

- Lane DeNicola (University College London, UK)

*Section C: Socialising Digital Anthropology*

Disability in the Digital Age

- Faye Ginsburg (New York University, USA)

Approaches to Personal Communication

- Stefana Broadbent (University College London, UK)

Social Networking Sites

- Daniel Miller (University College London, UK)

*Section D: Politicising Digital Anthropology*

Digital Politics and Political Engagement

- John Postill (Sheffield Hallam University, UK)

Free Software and the Politics of Sharing

- Jelena Karanovic (New York University, USA)

Diverse Digital Worlds

- Bart Barendregt (Leiden University, Netherlands)

Digital Engagement: Voice and Participation in Development

- Jo Tacchi (RMIT University, Australia)

*Section E: Designing Digital Anthropology*

Digital Anthropology in Design Anthropology

- Adam Drazin (University College London, UK)

Museum Digital = ?

- Haidy Geismar (New York University, USA)

Digital Gaming, Game Design, and its Precursors

- Thomas Malaby (University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, USA)
*About the Authors/Editors*

Heather A. Horst is a Vice Chancellor's Senior Research Fellow in the
School of Media and Communication at RMIT University, Australia.

Daniel Miller is Professor of Material Culture at the Department of
Anthropology, University College London, UK

-- 
Heather A. Horst
Vice Chancellor's Senior Research Fellow
School of Media and Communication
College of Design and Social Context
RMIT University
Melbourne Victoria 3001
Australia

Phone: +61 3 9925 3988
Email: heather.horst at rmit.edu.au
Web: *http://heatherhorst.com/*