Goldsmiths - University of London

Dr Jennifer Barth

Jennifer Barth teaches in the Department of Computing at Goldsmiths, University of London in the Centre for Creative and Social Technologies (CAST).  After completing her DPhil at the University of Oxford in 2010, she has been exploring the areas of digital sociology, digital research methods and how we might become hybrid social researchers moving across the physical and digital world. This work comes out of the desire to augment her ethnographic practice with digital techniques and multimedia field research. She has undertaken multiple short digital projects including one on Firesheep and privacy and another on Cloud computing, both featured in the media.

Her DPhil thesis entitled Taste, ethics and the market in Guatemalan coffee.  An ethnographic study, took her to Latin America where she worked closely with coffee producers and other coffee professionals located in or passing through Guatemala. She has undertaken research projects as both academic and consultant in Zimbabwe and Tanzania where she looked at the potential for ethical investment strategies to meet the needs as defined by the people at whom they were directed. She continues to be passionate about coffee, ethics and new digital research.

Jenn is the CAST course leader for the MA/MSc Digital Sociology and teaches on the Digital Case Studies, Digital Sandbox, and Digital Research Methods modules.

Conferences

28 January, 2012, Uploading Ethnography: Developing a Real Time Archive, Workshop part of the Real Time Research Project, funded by ESRC National Centre for Research Methods.

3 December 2011, ‘The Hybrid Social Researcher’, Event One of the Real Time Research project, Goldsmiths, University of London.

April 2011, ‘Learning to taste coffee: Origin stories, ethical imaginations, and the perfect cup’, Association of American Geographers, Seattle.

Research interests

• Ethnographic methods in the physical and digital world
• Digital sociology
• Intersections of social theory and computing practice
• Digital research methods
• Coffee production and networks
• Ethical commitments in supply networks and ethical investment strategies
• Economic sociology and geography
• Materiality, affect and taste

Selected publications

‘Digital Interventions in Social Research’ Submitted to Sociological Review, September 2011, with Chris Brauer and Robert Zimmer

(2010), ‘Taste, ethics and the market in Guatemalan coffee.  An ethnographic study.', Unpublished DPhil thesis, School of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford.