Laura Haapio-Kirk
PhD Researcher, Department of Anthropology, University College London
Laura is a PhD researcher on the ERC-funded Anthropology of Smartphones and Smart Ageing project based at UCL Anthropology. Her research examines experiences of ageing in Japan, particularly among people in mid-life, and questions the impact of mobile phones on daily life for older adults. She is also interested in how the challenges and opportunities afforded by this life stage shape the way that the smartphone is used, including the phenomena of care at a distance.
Between 2014-2019 she spent a total of two years in Japan, during which she conducted 16 consecutive months of ethnographic fieldwork primarily in Kyoto city and rural Kochi prefecture. In 2018 and 2019 she was a visiting researcher at the Graduate School of Human Sciences, Osaka University. Before starting her PhD Laura was an research assistant and public engagement fellow on the ERC-funded Why We Post project at UCL Anthropology, and has published about digital approaches to public anthropology.
Laura’s training in Visual Anthropology informs her ethnographic approach which combines participant observation with drawing and film as research methods. She is interested in pushing traditional modes of academic dissemination, and is currently writing a book about her research in Japan which combines reportage illustration and text.
Laura was previously a research assistant for Dr Inge Daniels (University of Oxford) for whom she produced a series of maps documenting visitor observation she conducted at Dr Daniels’ exhibition At Home in Japan (Geffrye Museum, London) in 2011. The maps are published in Daniels’ book titled What are Exhibitions for? An Anthropological Approach (2019, Bloomsbury Publishing).
laurahaapiokirk.com | RAI/Leach Fellow in Public Anthropology
Using Drawing to Understand Technology
Laura is co-hosting a workshop with Jennifer Cearns that explores participatory drawing as a way to elicit research participants’ thoughts and feelings in non-verbal media which can be especially helpful when approaching intimate topics. This workshop is an opportunity to reflect on our own experiences of technology, and to think about how drawing can aid ethnographic enquiry.