Bio

Annette Markham is currently Professor of Media Literacies and Public Engagement in the department of Media and Culture at Utrecht University, Netherlands. She researches the lived experience of datafication and digitalization, through the lens of digital ethnography, interpretive sociology, and symbolic interactionism. Markham’s work in ethics and research design focuses on developing intuitive and intuitive conceptual frameworks for research ethics that go beyond regulatory models to consider impact accountabilities, and she is lead author of the 2012 AoIR Ethics guidelines (Association of Internet Researchers). She is also well known and writes broadly about research methodologies, particularly in her work to describe ethics as fundamentally a matter of method, as well as her work on the politics, ethics, and practices of online and digital ethnography. Methods specializations include guided digital autoethnography, critical pedagogy, arts-based interventions, citizen social science, digital and data literacy through critical pedagogy, and digital ethnography. 

With her Chair at Utrecht University, Annette focuses on frameworks and tools for generating more ethical digital futures through publicly engaged critical pedagogy. As a methodologist trained in humanities, social science, and feminist traditions, she is well known for developing frameworks for mindful, ethical, and creative approaches to studying cultural phenomena in digitally-saturated, datafied, and AI-embedded social contexts. Her workshops generally involve speculative design thinking techniques to foster self-guided social science among citizens. As founder and PI of the Futures+ Literacies + Methods Lab (FLL), Markham is collaborating with Utrecht University’s Center for Digital Humanities, the Inclusive AI Lab, and a broad international network of future-oriented institutes to use participatory engagement practices and community engaged learning as modes for building capacity around tools for ethical and critical AI literacies, especially to explore the power, potential, and ethical dilemmas of AI in everyday internet and digital media usage

In addition to building the Futures + Literacies Lab at Utrecht University (2025- ), Annette directs the international Skagen Institute, an consortium of fellows that hosts an annual Conference on Transgressive Methods. Prior to moving to Utrecht University in the Netherlands in 2024, Annette was Professor and Director of the Digital Ethnography Research Centre at RMIT University in Australia (2020-2023), former Professor MSO leading the Danish Research Foundation project on Creating Future Heritages at Aarhus University in Denmark, co-founder and -director of Aarhus University’s international Masters degree program in Digital Living (2013-2020), and former co-founder/co-director of Aarhus University’s Digital Living Research Centre. In 2014, she created and directed the Future Making Research Consortium, an international collaboratory that brought together scholars, artists, and activists, particularly early career researchers, to study the intersection of digital technology, ways of being in the world, and future possible meanings, practices, and social structures.

Markham is well-known for designing and facilitating PhD Summer Schools, workshops, and short interdisciplinary intensive training courses in the areas of digital ethics, digital identity, and research methods, across disciplines such as anthropology, architecture, arts management, communication studies, data science, design, digital culture, digtal humanities, education, gender studies, informatics, information studies, linguistics, media studies, social psychology, and social science. Her writing can be found in a range of international journals, books, and edited collections. Annette holds an honorary adjunct professor position at RMIT University (Media and Communication). See various publications, note recent or upcoming talks, or see Annette Markham’s full CV.

To contact Annette directly, please send email to amarkham {at] gmail [dot} com

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