Dr. Michaelanne Thomas researches how people use technology for their own purposes, including those it wasn’t designed for. People show ingenuity, innovation, and creativity. She focuses on the context of precarity and constraint and the systems people engage with technology. She uses cultural and anthropological methods that help us see better understand these impacts.
People’s stories of their lived experiences with communication must inform our research. What are the dominant narratives that shape how we think about progress and technology? Technology and the internet isn’t all good and all bad. There is nuance and complexity to these stories. And, marvel for how people take opportunity to impact wider systems. This research is about the physical technical connections, and also relational / emotional connections of people.
Dr. Michaelanne Thomas introduces a relational, infrastructural approach to Information Communication Technologies (ICT), or ICT-mediated survival strategies. That technology can help people have resilience, to ‘bounce back’ in life when a disruption happens. Dr. Thomas examines how people interact with each other, things like communal support make such a difference when crises happen. The goal of this research is to facilitate community resilience through research, practice, design, and policy.
Areas of Research
Anthropology
Science and Technology Studies (STS)
Human Computer Interaction (HCI)
Cuban Studies
Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW)
Information Communication Technologies and Development (ICTD)
Latin American and Caribbean Studies
Feminist Theories of Care
Internet Access in Resource Constrained Contexts
Local Information Systems
Social Media for Social Shange
Michaelanne Thomas, PhD 