I was trained in cultural anthropology, French studies, and computer science.

My research and teaching interests are in the anthropology of media and anthropology of science and technology, focusing on transnational cultures, ethnographic methods online, new media practices and advocacy, communication and information rights, France and Europe. In pursuing these interests, I bring anthropology into dialogue with media studies, feminist technoscience studies, law studies, and European studies.

My book manuscript, in preparation, examines cultural construction of information technologies and digital media through an ethnographic study of French voluntary associations that advocate free software. Drawing on twenty months of fieldwork conducted offline and online in France in 2004 and 2005, I trace the renewed relevance of national frameworks in mobilization around transnational software and rethink the impact of media technologies on the production of collective identities. I also examine the dilemmas of facilitating democratic engagement in expert fields such as software engineering and intellectual property law. More broadly, my work highlights the divergent and often contentious terms on which people across the world use digital media technologies, suggesting that culture and history are key to understanding global digital infrastructures.

Please e-mail me at jelena@karanovic.org if you have questions. Thanks!