I’m a researcher and writer based in the UK – with a focus on digital (in)equality, data, and AI. I work as a Public Engagement Researcher at the Ada Lovelace Institute. I’m also a Digital Poverty Alliance Ambassador, currently drafting a national UK Digital Poverty Evidence Review (2022).
An anthropologist by training, I learn from and collaborate directly with people who have lived experience of digital exclusion so we can imagine a more just and equitable digital future together. My overarching research interest is in working with people who are closing the digital divide from the bottom up, in their communities.
Using participatory, ethnographic methods my research explores the role, relevance, and resistances of “the local” in our digital worlds. I look at how local spaces, places, and identities are entangled with digital technologies and datafied systems. The local is a dynamic domain of experimentation, in which we can see otherwise invisible impacts of technology on people in their everyday lives. The local is also a domain in which alternative futures are imagined and tested.
In addition to research and public engagement, I teach podcast/audio production and co-lead the creative co-op Cherry Soup. I also do a bit of design and videography, and I advise on documentary/factual scriptwriting and interview techniques.
I completed a DPhil at the University of Oxford on a Rhodes Scholarship, where I studied online/offline geographies of exclusion in Cairo after the 2011 Egyptian revolution. Before joining the Ada Lovelace Institute, I held a Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Media Law and Policy at the Centre for Socio-Legal Studies at the University of Oxford, where I studied community-owned and -operated internet networks. I have a B.A. from The College of William and Mary in Government and Linguistics and an MPhil in Modern Middle Eastern Studies from the University of Oxford.
Useful links:
Kira Allmann 