J Sinanan
Datos Biográficos
| ID | 19017 |
|---|---|
| NOMBRE | J Sinanan |
| NOMBRES | J |
| APELLIDO | Sinanan |
| FIRMA | SINANAN J |
| AFILIACIONES | The University of Sydney |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-4423-8972 |
| VERIFICADO | Sí |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 26 |
| TOTAL DE CITAS | 72 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 26 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 0 |
| PRIMER AÑO DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2011 |
| AÑO MÁS RECIENTE DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2025 |
| ÍNDICE H | 5 |
Field Works
Digital Gifts and Rituals
In Chapter 4 we revisit historical discussions around mobile media as gift and the important anthropological meanings of the gift as a practice into power relations and rituals, to think about how we might expand upon this practice in terms of location. Here location, co-location and co-presence are revisited
Forum
There is a place on the southwest edge of Ireland, where stone and sea touch in a constant ebb and flow of memory, history and landscape. Dingle, or An Daingean as it is in the local Irish language. A name that evokes myth and magic, conjuring not only the topography of its windswept cliffs and quiet, stony fields but also the sense of something larger - a pulse, a draw, something that carries you in
Refiguring Possible Futures
Framing Multipolar Tourism
This article examines multipolar iconography and how imaginaries of remote, climate-vulnerable places have materialized through improved transport, enhanced accommodation facilities, and increased human labor facilitating tourism. These imaginaries are perpetuated through technologies of visual culture, most commonly, through images taken on smartphones and circulated over social media platforms. We argue that a closer investigation and compariso…
Diabolus in Machina? Complex Digital Systems Interpreted through Early Modern Demonology
Based on the characterisation of complex technology as inherently magical, we interpret the engagement with digital systems within the framework of medieval and early modern demonological thought. By presenting a historicising argument that demonic understandings are inherent to the navigation of technological systems, we provide an ontological approach to the debate on the intentionality of technology. In the demonological vision of technology, …
Emerging media technologies in the tourist encounter
Digital technologies and the practices that follow, from reviews and recommendations on websites to content on social media platforms characterised by real-time connectivity are now inseparable from tourist experiences. Further, the technological, and infrastructural configurations that underpin digital practices in tourism are increasingly impinged upon by non-human actors (such as algorithms and data governance and regulatory measures). This sp…
Digital Infrastructure
From an anthropological perspective, it is well recognized that infrastructures have the potential to disrupt and reconfigure communities and environments, lives, and livelihoods. As with other infrastructures, digital infrastructures are often owned and maintained by government entities, as well as by corporations or large companies aligned with political and commercial interests. Anthropological contributions to digital infrastructure not only …
Everest, Everestland, #Everest
Arguably Mount Everest has always been mediatized: its appeal as an idea has existed in part through technologies of visual cultures. Exploring the digital media practices of tourists and the tourism workers, this article considers how imaginaries of Mount Everest that appear through technologies of visual culture relate to experiences of Everest in Nepal. I argue for a composite visual ethnographic approach that entails examining experiences on …
Gendered and generational dynamics of domestic automations
Automation in the home is often presented as a value neutral process which makes life easier, more efficient and more productive. As recent research on the introduction of domestic technologies has revealed, these technologies are rarely value neutral and often work to reinforce gender dynamics in the household. This article examines the gendered and generational dimensions of how smart and automated technologies are being integrated into homes. …
Storing and sharing
Solid-state drives, Bluetooth capabilities, smartphones, “the cloud,” social media platforms, and other digital technologies have fundamentally altered how we share and store digital materials. This article sets an agenda for understanding how people manage the proliferation of digital material in their everyday lives through a close examination of the strategies and rituals different people around the world employ to organize, curate, or delete …
Digital housekeeping
The availability and affordability of memory and other services formats to store digital material has proliferated over the past 15 years. Making, sharing and storing digital material is now a mundane practice that is part of a broader ecology of living with different kinds of data. This article examines routines of managing networked technologies in the home: digital housekeeping through three core practices of sharing and storing everyday data.…
Great AI divides? Automated decision-making technologies and dreams of development
A growing body of scholarship is combining studies of automated decision-making’s potential to alleviate challenges of development with critical perspectives on discourses and deployment of technologies in developing contexts. This article builds on this literature by drawing links between ‘dreams of development’ and the imaginings and aspirations surrounding automated decision making in the Global South. The article explores how three classic de…
Far Out
Digital Media Practices in Households
How are intergenerational relationships playing out in the digital rhythms of the household? Through extensive fieldwork in Tokyo, Shanghai and Melbourne, this book ethnographically explores how households are being understood, articulated and defined by digital media practices. It explores the rise of self-tracking, quantified self and informal practices of care at distance as part of contemporary household dynamics
Teaching Global Social Media Through Ethnography
This short piece reflects on both the ethnographic process and the ethnographic products from the Why We Post research project, conducted between 2012 and 2017. I draw attention to the comparative nature of the project, from inception to writing up and how our comparative approach to ethnographic research has formed effective tools for teaching anthropological sensibilities to students of media and digital media studies. In the pedagogical practi…
Everybody needs friends’
The importance of kin relations and neighbourhoods has received considerable attention in research on transnational migration. Further, research in transnational families and digital media highlights the strategies for maintaining family relationships By contrast, research on friendship is currently limited and, more so, the centrality of the emotional aspects of friendships as intimacy as well as networks of support has received less attention, …
Choose yourself
Social media is often assumed to espouse ego-centred networking. Yet by comparing posts to Facebook and Instagram, it becomes apparent that the experience and aspirations of the individual are often embedded in structures of family and other institutions that have been historically determined. This article locates images posted by women to two social media platforms, Facebook and Instagram, within the Caribbean island of Trinidad's wider history …
Cultural Cosmologies of the Internet
In this panel we consider how social actors situate uses of technologies within systems of moral norms and values while at the same time compelling the creation of new ones. Popular discourse tends to present dualistic thinking of the positive and negative impacts of technologies. Scholars have engaged with the internet and digital media, emphasising emancipatory subcultures (Coleman 2014; Gehl 2016, 2018) or presenting a critical view of the con…
Contemporary Comparative Anthropology - The Why We Post Project
This paper confronts the disparity between a tradition that has defined anthropology as a comparative discipline and the practices which increasingly embrace cultural relativism and the uniqueness of each fieldsite. It suggests that it is possible to resolve this dilemma, through creating a vertical structure that complements the horizontal task of comparison across fieldsites. This vertical structure is composed of different methods of dissemina…
A history of the convergence of ethnography, cultural studies and digital media
Book review: A history of the convergence of ethnography, cultural studies and digital media
Non-Activism
Despite scholarly and popular assertions that social media transforms the possibilities for political engagement, there is little investigation to the relationship between public life and political discussion on social media platforms in the everyday lives of people in different cultural contexts. Based on 15 months ethnographic inquiry in a Trinidadian town, this article examines a political event (the hunger strike of Dr Wayne Kublalsingh) as i…
Tactile digital ethnography
In this article we focus on the relationship between vision and the hand to develop an understanding of the experience of mobile media use which in turn informs a methodology for researching it; a tactile digital ethnography. Theories of knowing through the hand, and uses of the hand in documentary practice already highlight its significance. We bring these together with our video ethnographies of mobile media use, to show how a focus on the hand…
Crafted assemblage
Blogs categorised in the genres of fashion and lifestyle are often overlooked in discussions of blogging, politics and citizenship. This article examines lifestyle blogs with rich media content, authored by young Singaporean women. It argues through a content analysis and an analysis of the blogs' aesthetic as assemblage that there is a significant relationship between women's consumerism in Singapore and expressions of citizenship. These blogs h…
Social Media in Trinidad
Drawing on 15 months of ethnographic research in one of the most under-developed regions in the Caribbean island of Trinidad, this book describes the uses and consequences of social media for its residents. Jolynna Sinanan argues that this semi-urban town is a place in-between: somewhere city dwellers look down on and villagers look up to. The complex identity of the town is expressed through uses of social media, with significant results for und…
Tactile digital ethnography
In this article we focus on the relationship between vision and the hand to develop an understanding of the experience of mobile media use which in turn informs a methodology for researching it; a tactile digital ethnography. Theories of knowing through the hand, and uses of the hand in documentary practice already highlight its significance. We bring these together with our video ethnographies of mobile media use, to show how a focus on the hand…
Everybody needs friends’
The importance of kin relations and neighbourhoods has received considerable attention in research on transnational migration. Further, research in transnational families and digital media highlights the strategies for maintaining family relationships By contrast, research on friendship is currently limited and, more so, the centrality of the emotional aspects of friendships as intimacy as well as networks of support has received less attention, …
Contemporary Comparative Anthropology - The Why We Post Project
This paper confronts the disparity between a tradition that has defined anthropology as a comparative discipline and the practices which increasingly embrace cultural relativism and the uniqueness of each fieldsite. It suggests that it is possible to resolve this dilemma, through creating a vertical structure that complements the horizontal task of comparison across fieldsites. This vertical structure is composed of different methods of dissemina…
Storing and sharing
Solid-state drives, Bluetooth capabilities, smartphones, “the cloud,” social media platforms, and other digital technologies have fundamentally altered how we share and store digital materials. This article sets an agenda for understanding how people manage the proliferation of digital material in their everyday lives through a close examination of the strategies and rituals different people around the world employ to organize, curate, or delete …
Digital housekeeping
The availability and affordability of memory and other services formats to store digital material has proliferated over the past 15 years. Making, sharing and storing digital material is now a mundane practice that is part of a broader ecology of living with different kinds of data. This article examines routines of managing networked technologies in the home: digital housekeeping through three core practices of sharing and storing everyday data.…
Choose yourself
Social media is often assumed to espouse ego-centred networking. Yet by comparing posts to Facebook and Instagram, it becomes apparent that the experience and aspirations of the individual are often embedded in structures of family and other institutions that have been historically determined. This article locates images posted by women to two social media platforms, Facebook and Instagram, within the Caribbean island of Trinidad's wider history …
Emerging media technologies in the tourist encounter
Digital technologies and the practices that follow, from reviews and recommendations on websites to content on social media platforms characterised by real-time connectivity are now inseparable from tourist experiences. Further, the technological, and infrastructural configurations that underpin digital practices in tourism are increasingly impinged upon by non-human actors (such as algorithms and data governance and regulatory measures). This sp…
Non-Activism
Despite scholarly and popular assertions that social media transforms the possibilities for political engagement, there is little investigation to the relationship between public life and political discussion on social media platforms in the everyday lives of people in different cultural contexts. Based on 15 months ethnographic inquiry in a Trinidadian town, this article examines a political event (the hunger strike of Dr Wayne Kublalsingh) as i…
Refiguring Possible Futures
Framing Multipolar Tourism
This article examines multipolar iconography and how imaginaries of remote, climate-vulnerable places have materialized through improved transport, enhanced accommodation facilities, and increased human labor facilitating tourism. These imaginaries are perpetuated through technologies of visual culture, most commonly, through images taken on smartphones and circulated over social media platforms. We argue that a closer investigation and compariso…
Everest, Everestland, #Everest
Arguably Mount Everest has always been mediatized: its appeal as an idea has existed in part through technologies of visual cultures. Exploring the digital media practices of tourists and the tourism workers, this article considers how imaginaries of Mount Everest that appear through technologies of visual culture relate to experiences of Everest in Nepal. I argue for a composite visual ethnographic approach that entails examining experiences on …
Great AI divides? Automated decision-making technologies and dreams of development
A growing body of scholarship is combining studies of automated decision-making’s potential to alleviate challenges of development with critical perspectives on discourses and deployment of technologies in developing contexts. This article builds on this literature by drawing links between ‘dreams of development’ and the imaginings and aspirations surrounding automated decision making in the Global South. The article explores how three classic de…
Cultural Cosmologies of the Internet
In this panel we consider how social actors situate uses of technologies within systems of moral norms and values while at the same time compelling the creation of new ones. Popular discourse tends to present dualistic thinking of the positive and negative impacts of technologies. Scholars have engaged with the internet and digital media, emphasising emancipatory subcultures (Coleman 2014; Gehl 2016, 2018) or presenting a critical view of the con…
Nation, Modernisation and Civilisation
(2011). Nation, Modernisation and Civilisation: Development and the Emergence of a Transformed Cambodian State. Global Discourse: Vol. 2, Part 2: Examining the Contemporary Relevance of Marxism, pp. 34-56
Crafted assemblage
Blogs categorised in the genres of fashion and lifestyle are often overlooked in discussions of blogging, politics and citizenship. This article examines lifestyle blogs with rich media content, authored by young Singaporean women. It argues through a content analysis and an analysis of the blogs' aesthetic as assemblage that there is a significant relationship between women's consumerism in Singapore and expressions of citizenship. These blogs h…
Tactile digital ethnography
In this article we focus on the relationship between vision and the hand to develop an understanding of the experience of mobile media use which in turn informs a methodology for researching it; a tactile digital ethnography. Theories of knowing through the hand, and uses of the hand in documentary practice already highlight its significance. We bring these together with our video ethnographies of mobile media use, to show how a focus on the hand…
Non-Activism
Despite scholarly and popular assertions that social media transforms the possibilities for political engagement, there is little investigation to the relationship between public life and political discussion on social media platforms in the everyday lives of people in different cultural contexts. Based on 15 months ethnographic inquiry in a Trinidadian town, this article examines a political event (the hunger strike of Dr Wayne Kublalsingh) as i…
A history of the convergence of ethnography, cultural studies and digital media
Book review: A history of the convergence of ethnography, cultural studies and digital media
Cultural Cosmologies of the Internet
In this panel we consider how social actors situate uses of technologies within systems of moral norms and values while at the same time compelling the creation of new ones. Popular discourse tends to present dualistic thinking of the positive and negative impacts of technologies. Scholars have engaged with the internet and digital media, emphasising emancipatory subcultures (Coleman 2014; Gehl 2016, 2018) or presenting a critical view of the con…
Contemporary Comparative Anthropology - The Why We Post Project
This paper confronts the disparity between a tradition that has defined anthropology as a comparative discipline and the practices which increasingly embrace cultural relativism and the uniqueness of each fieldsite. It suggests that it is possible to resolve this dilemma, through creating a vertical structure that complements the horizontal task of comparison across fieldsites. This vertical structure is composed of different methods of dissemina…
Digital Media Practices in Households
How are intergenerational relationships playing out in the digital rhythms of the household? Through extensive fieldwork in Tokyo, Shanghai and Melbourne, this book ethnographically explores how households are being understood, articulated and defined by digital media practices. It explores the rise of self-tracking, quantified self and informal practices of care at distance as part of contemporary household dynamics
Teaching Global Social Media Through Ethnography
This short piece reflects on both the ethnographic process and the ethnographic products from the Why We Post research project, conducted between 2012 and 2017. I draw attention to the comparative nature of the project, from inception to writing up and how our comparative approach to ethnographic research has formed effective tools for teaching anthropological sensibilities to students of media and digital media studies. In the pedagogical practi…
Everybody needs friends’
The importance of kin relations and neighbourhoods has received considerable attention in research on transnational migration. Further, research in transnational families and digital media highlights the strategies for maintaining family relationships By contrast, research on friendship is currently limited and, more so, the centrality of the emotional aspects of friendships as intimacy as well as networks of support has received less attention, …
Choose yourself
Social media is often assumed to espouse ego-centred networking. Yet by comparing posts to Facebook and Instagram, it becomes apparent that the experience and aspirations of the individual are often embedded in structures of family and other institutions that have been historically determined. This article locates images posted by women to two social media platforms, Facebook and Instagram, within the Caribbean island of Trinidad's wider history …
Gendered and generational dynamics of domestic automations
Automation in the home is often presented as a value neutral process which makes life easier, more efficient and more productive. As recent research on the introduction of domestic technologies has revealed, these technologies are rarely value neutral and often work to reinforce gender dynamics in the household. This article examines the gendered and generational dimensions of how smart and automated technologies are being integrated into homes. …
Storing and sharing
Solid-state drives, Bluetooth capabilities, smartphones, “the cloud,” social media platforms, and other digital technologies have fundamentally altered how we share and store digital materials. This article sets an agenda for understanding how people manage the proliferation of digital material in their everyday lives through a close examination of the strategies and rituals different people around the world employ to organize, curate, or delete …
Digital housekeeping
The availability and affordability of memory and other services formats to store digital material has proliferated over the past 15 years. Making, sharing and storing digital material is now a mundane practice that is part of a broader ecology of living with different kinds of data. This article examines routines of managing networked technologies in the home: digital housekeeping through three core practices of sharing and storing everyday data.…
Great AI divides? Automated decision-making technologies and dreams of development
A growing body of scholarship is combining studies of automated decision-making’s potential to alleviate challenges of development with critical perspectives on discourses and deployment of technologies in developing contexts. This article builds on this literature by drawing links between ‘dreams of development’ and the imaginings and aspirations surrounding automated decision making in the Global South. The article explores how three classic de…
Far Out
Digital Infrastructure
From an anthropological perspective, it is well recognized that infrastructures have the potential to disrupt and reconfigure communities and environments, lives, and livelihoods. As with other infrastructures, digital infrastructures are often owned and maintained by government entities, as well as by corporations or large companies aligned with political and commercial interests. Anthropological contributions to digital infrastructure not only …
Everest, Everestland, #Everest
Arguably Mount Everest has always been mediatized: its appeal as an idea has existed in part through technologies of visual cultures. Exploring the digital media practices of tourists and the tourism workers, this article considers how imaginaries of Mount Everest that appear through technologies of visual culture relate to experiences of Everest in Nepal. I argue for a composite visual ethnographic approach that entails examining experiences on …
Diabolus in Machina? Complex Digital Systems Interpreted through Early Modern Demonology
Based on the characterisation of complex technology as inherently magical, we interpret the engagement with digital systems within the framework of medieval and early modern demonological thought. By presenting a historicising argument that demonic understandings are inherent to the navigation of technological systems, we provide an ontological approach to the debate on the intentionality of technology. In the demonological vision of technology, …
Social Media in Trinidad
Drawing on 15 months of ethnographic research in one of the most under-developed regions in the Caribbean island of Trinidad, this book describes the uses and consequences of social media for its residents. Jolynna Sinanan argues that this semi-urban town is a place in-between: somewhere city dwellers look down on and villagers look up to. The complex identity of the town is expressed through uses of social media, with significant results for und…
Emerging media technologies in the tourist encounter
Digital technologies and the practices that follow, from reviews and recommendations on websites to content on social media platforms characterised by real-time connectivity are now inseparable from tourist experiences. Further, the technological, and infrastructural configurations that underpin digital practices in tourism are increasingly impinged upon by non-human actors (such as algorithms and data governance and regulatory measures). This sp…
Field Works
Digital Gifts and Rituals
In Chapter 4 we revisit historical discussions around mobile media as gift and the important anthropological meanings of the gift as a practice into power relations and rituals, to think about how we might expand upon this practice in terms of location. Here location, co-location and co-presence are revisited
Forum
There is a place on the southwest edge of Ireland, where stone and sea touch in a constant ebb and flow of memory, history and landscape. Dingle, or An Daingean as it is in the local Irish language. A name that evokes myth and magic, conjuring not only the topography of its windswept cliffs and quiet, stony fields but also the sense of something larger - a pulse, a draw, something that carries you in
Refiguring Possible Futures
Political science (20 obras) · Sociology (20 obras) · Computer Science (12 obras) · Law (9 obras) · Media studies (9 obras) · Anthropology (7 obras) · Digital media (7 obras) · Ethnography (7 obras) · Business (6 obras) · Art (5 obras)