Victoria BERNAL
Fonction
Membres associé.e.s Professor EmeritaAffiliation
University of California, Irvine (UCI)Présentation
Victoria Bernal is a cultural anthropologist whose scholarship in political anthropology contributes to media and IT studies, gender studies, and African studies. Her work addresses questions relating to politics, gender, migration and diaspora, war, globalization, transnationalism, civil society and activism, development, digital media, and Islam. Dr. Bernal’s research is particularly concerned with relations of power and inequality and the dynamic struggles of ordinary people as they confront the cruel and absurd contradictions arising from the concentration of wealth and political power locally and globally. She has carried out ethnographic research in Sudan, Tanzania, Eritrea, Silicon Valley and cyberspace.
Research Interests:
Political anthropology; gender and feminist theory; digital media and cyberspace; transnationalism, migration, and diaspora; states, security, surveillance, citizenship, NGOs, civil society, the public sphere, and protest; violence, war, and memorialization; Islam, African Studies
Biographie
Edited Volume
– 2023 Cryptopolitics: Exposure, Concealment and Digital Media co-edited with Katrien Pype and Daivi Rodima-Taylor. Berghahn Books.
Edited Special Issues of Journals
– 2023 “Ethnographies of Infopolitics in Africa: Connectivity, Control, and Technology Contracts” co-edited with Katrien Pype Anthropological Quarterly 96(4):611-762.
– 2021 “Covid 19 Humour in Africa” Journal of African Media Studies 14(2)
– 2020 “African Digital Diasporas: Technologies, Tactics, and Trends” African Diaspora. 12
Articles and Chapters
– 2023 Crazy, Stupid, Lying Traitors: Eritrean Politics and Extreme Speech Online” Anthropological
Quarterly 96(4):651-682.
– 2023 “This Dictatorship is a Joke: Eritrean Politics as Tragicomedy” In Cryptopolitics: Exposure,
Concealment and Digital Media co-edited with Katrien Pype and Daivi Rodima-Taylor. Pp.
184-206. Berghahn Books.
– 2023 “Introduction: Cryptopolitics and Digital Media” with Katrien Pype and Daivi Rodima-Taylor
In Cryptopolitics: Exposure, Concealment and Digital Media co-edited with Katrien Pype and Daivi Rodima-Taylor. Pp. 1-23. Berghahn Books.
– 2023 “Conclusion: Studying Cryptopolitics” with Katrien Pype and Daivi Rodima-Taylor
In Cryptopolitics: Exposure, Concealment and Digital Media co-edited with Katrien Pype and Daivi Rodima-Taylor. Pp. 234-240. Berghahn Books.
– 2023 “Introduction: Infopolitics and Technology Contracts” with Katrien Pype Anthropological
Quarterly 96(4):611-624.
Invited lectures
– 2024 “Reflections on Cryptopolitics and Ethnography” Guest Lecture, KU Leuven, March 27.
– 2024 “Cryptopolitics, Infopolitics, and Digital Media” Universite de Louvain la Neuve, March 21.
– 2024 “Digital Media and the Shifting Spaces of Eritrean Politics” Sciences Po, Bordeaux, March 15.
– 2024 “Earth/ Body/ Soul: Digital Power and Artistic Agency” University of Cape Town, February 21.
– 2024 “Cyberspace and the City: (Post)colonial Imaginaries and Eritrean Politics” Cornell University, Institute for African Development, November 16.
Grant reviews for :
– FWO Flemish Research Foundation, Review College Member 2025-2027
– ACLS Dissertation Innovation Fellowship, Review Panel Member 2024-2025
– UC Presidential Postdoctoral Fellowship, Review Member, 2024-25
– EUSF (European Science Foundation) 2024, 2022
– British Academy 2024