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I am a Programme Leader on the MA in International Relations and Global Communications; and a Programme Co-Leader on the MA in Digital Society where I am also in charge of the bracketed award in Digital Politics. On both programmes, I teach digital politics, political communication, digital technologies in everyday life, and qualitative digital methods. And everything I teach is closely related to my long-term experience of researching and publishing on the topic.
I have always been fascinated by the relations between politics and on-line communication. 20 years ago I began researching how people discuss politics on the Internet, in on-line forums and on websites – whether by taking part in heated arguments; or by publishing or sharing stories or images of things such as war, peace, justice, patriotism, heroism, betrayal. Then social media became popular, so I moved on to studying the ways it can be mobilised by governments, armies, or activists. To this date, I have published several books on the topic:
In adition to digital politics, I have also researched issues of gender and sexuality; migration; violence; and collective memory. My work has taken me to memoirs of the Soviet Gulags; racism in the name of queerness; post-Soviet melancholia and forgotten histories; haunted futurities; digital memory, and much more.
In the last few years, my work has taken a new direction, towards a critical exploration of digital cultures, politics and communication from two angles:
(1) the right to not be included in digital data and sociality and the right to opt out and disconnect
(2) environmental harms of digital technologies and on-line communication and how these are linked to racial and social injustice
I am currently coordinating the Digital Politics research cluster, which includes a PhD pathway, a series of reseasrch activities, and a blog.
Digital communication changes so rapidly, that my students find themselves among the first ones trying to understand what is happening and why. Why do people believe fake news? Why are smaprtphone apps so popular that we cannot imagine our lives without them? What is biometric governance? How do algorithms perpetuate racial injustice? Will digital technologies destroy the planet? We read books to enrich our understanding, and look at the real world examples of digital politics around us. The discussions in my classroom are always most fascinating and insightful, and I know they give the student the best tools to grow professionally and intellectually.
In the world of hashtag protest, cyberwars, fake news and algorithmic biases, the topic of Digital Politics and Digital Society is both most timely and exciting. An interdisciplinary field, located at the intersection of international relations, political economy, sociology, media, and communication studies, the subject of digital politics brings together innovative research on recent and acutely relevant matters to national and global matters alike.
My classroom is based on the principle of democratic learning: we are in this together. We discuss, we share ideas, we create a dialogue where, eventually, you become the experts.
2007 PhD Department of Sociology, Lancaster University, UK.
2004 Certificate in Learning and Teaching in Higher Education (CiLTHE), Lancaster University’s Higher Education Development Centre.
2002 MA Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology, Hebrew University, Israel.
1997 BA Art History Department and General Humanity Studies Department, Hebrew University, Israel.
2009- 2014 Research Fellow, The University of Manchester.
2007- 2009 Lecturer, School of Media, Critical and Creative Arts, Liverpool John Moores University.
2005 - 2006 Editorial assistant, Journal of Historical Sociology.
2003 - 2007 Lecturer, course convenor, tutor and research assistant, Department of Sociology, Lancaster University (part time).
I support postgraduate research in the Faculy, and currently mentor and coordinate two initiatives:
(1) Masters by Research and PhD in Digital Politics
(2) Annual postgraduate Winter and Summer schools on Digital Politics and Digital Society
Together with Dr Tom Brock, I coordinate DISC - Digital Society reesarch cluster which is part of our Research Centre for Applied Social Sciences
I am the Programme Leader of the MA in International Relations and Global Communications, and the Programme Co-Leader of the MSc in Digital Society. I contribute to several exciting units:
My teaching materials and topics are updated regularly, in line with the rapidly developing field of digital political communication, digital politics, and digital society. This year, a lot of the teaching is dedicated to exploring the role of digital technologies in the COVID-19 pandemic, for example, the use of contat tracing apps as a tool of public health management and as a form of digital surveillance.
Finally, as a published author, I regularly use my most recent research in the classroom, discussing latest developments in the field.
I have supervised and informally supported many PhD students to succesfull completion. Currently, I am supervising several PhD projects on social media, mobile technologies, and digital politics. I am also co-ordinating a PhD pathway in digital politics, including regular workshops, reading groups and Summer and Winter schools
I welcome prospective PhD students in the areas of digital politics; digital memory; environmental media; as well as in any other areas of my research expertise and interest.
In the last few years, my work has taken a new direction, towards a critical exploration of digital cultures and communication from two angles: (1) the right to not be included in digital data and sociality; and (2) the environmental tolls of digital communicaton.
The first exploration began as a collaborative project (with Esperanza Miyake) of what we coined 'digital disengagement' - a conscious reduction or rejection of the use of digital devices or communication platforms. In a series of short studies, we examined narratives and experiences of disconnection and refusal; the appropriation of disengagement initiatives by neo-liberal services and commercial digital initiatives; and the (im)possibility of opting out of digital health. Conceptually, we proposed to denaturalise digital engagement by placing refusal and opt out at the start of any critical conversation around digital culture and society. We arfued that while digital disengagement can be socially and politically transformative, the recent rise in initiatives such as 'digital detoxes' points to the profoundly unequal distribution of the luxury to disengage, where it emerges as a choice or even a right - but ony for some.We also argued that disengagement and opt out needs to be understood from the perspective of data justice and data rights, however in order to escape the neo-liberal trap of individualised responsibility and blame, those rights ought to be reformulated as collective rather than individual.
The second exploration focuses on the materiality of digital data and communicaiton, and in particular, the environmental harms inflicted by the ever-growing extraction of resources needed to produce digital devices; the toxicity of e-waste; and the rapidly increasing energy demands of data centres, needed to sustain every click, website, database or 'smart' network. At the heart of this exploration lies a troubling question of the highest relevance to today’s global community: how to reconcile the usefulness of digitisation and its rapid and expansive adoption into environmental policies and sustainability projects, with the extensive environmental damages, brought on by the digitisation itself? The project is in its early stages. Please contact me for more details
A. Kuntsman, L. Xin (2023). Digital politics, digital histories, digital futures: New approaches for historicising, politicising and imagining the digital.
A. Kuntsman, E. Miyake (2022). Paradoxes of Digital Disengagement: In Search of the Opt-Out Button. University of Westminster Press.
A. Kuntsman (2017). Selfie Citizenship. A. Kuntsman. Springer.
A. Kuntsman, R. Stein (2015). Digital Militarism Israel's Occupation in the Social Media Age. Stanford University Press.
J. Haritaworn, A. Kuntsman, S. Posocco (2014). Queer Necropolitics. Routledge.
A. Karatzogianni, A. Kuntsman (2012). Digital Cultures and the Politics of Emotion Feelings, Affect and Technological Change. A. Karatzogianni, A. Kuntsman. Palgrave Macmillan.
A. Karatzogianni, A. Kuntsman (2012). Preface and acknowledgements.
A. Kuntsman (2009). Figurations of Violence and Belonging Queerness, Migranthood and Nationalism in Cyberspace and Beyond. Peter Lang.
A. Kuntsman, E. Miyake (2008). Out of Place: Interrogating Silences in Queerness/Raciality. York, UK: Raw Nerve Books.
B. Alexis-Martin, A. Kuntsman, L. Xin (2020). Editorial. Journal of Environmental Media. 1(Supplement 1), pp.0.1-0.4.
A. Kuntsman (2020). From digital solutionism to materialist accountability: The urgency of new interventions. Journal of Environmental Media. 1(1), pp.15-19.
A. Kuntsman, I. Rattle (2019). Towards a paradigmatic shift in sustainability studies: a systematic review of peer reviewed literature and future agenda setting to consider environmental (un)sustainability of digital communication. Environmental Communication. 13(5), pp.567-581.
A. Kuntsman (2016). Queerness as Europeanness: Immigration, Orientalist Visions and Racialised Encounters in Israel/Palestine. Dark Matter. 3,
J. Haritaworn, A. Kuntsman, S. Posocco, E. Povinelli (2013). Obligation, Social Projects and Queer Politics ELIZABETH POVINELLI IN CONVERSATION WITH JIN HARITAWORN, ADI KUNTSMAN AND SILVIA POSOCCO. INTERNATIONAL FEMINIST JOURNAL OF POLITICS. 15(4), pp.554-564.
J. Haritaworn, A. Kuntsman, S. Posocco (2013). Murderous Inclusions Introduction. INTERNATIONAL FEMINIST JOURNAL OF POLITICS. 15(4), pp.445-452.
J. Haritaworn, A. Kuntsman, S. Posocco, E. Povinelli (2013). Obligation, Social Projects and Queer Politics. International Feminist Journal of Politics. 15(4), pp.554-564.
J. Haritaworn, A. Kuntsman, S. Posocco (2013). Murderous Inclusions. International Feminist Journal of Politics. 15(4), pp.445-452.
A. Kuntsman, S. Raji (2012). “Israelis And Iranians, Get a Room!”. Journal of Middle East Women's Studies. 8(3), pp.143-154.
A. Kuntsman, N. Al-Qasimi (2012). SPECIAL ISSUE Queering Middle Eastern Cyberscapes INTRODUCTION. JOURNAL OF MIDDLE EAST WOMENS STUDIES. 8(3), pp.1-13.
A. Kuntsman (2011). Digital Archives of Feelings and their Haunted Futures. Borderlands E-Journal: new spaces in the humanities. 10(2), pp.1-22.
A. Kuntsman (2010). Webs of hate in diasporic cyberspaces: the Gaza War in the Russian-language blogosphere. Media, War & Conflict. 3(3), pp.299-313.
A. Kuntsman (2009). "With a Shade of Disgust": Affective Politics of Sexuality and Class in Memoirs of the Stalinist Gulag. Slavic Review. 68(2), pp.308-328.
A. Kuntsman (2009). The Currency of Victimhood in Uncanny Homes: Queer Immigrants' Claims for Home and Belonging Through Anti-Homophobic Organising. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies. 35(1), pp.133-149.
A. Kuntsman (2008). Written In Blood. Feminist Media Studies. 8(3), pp.267-283.
A. Kuntsman (2008). BETWEEN GULAGS AND PRIDE PARADES. GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies. 14(2-3), pp.263-287.
A. Kuntsman (2008). The Soldier and the Terrorist: Sexy Nationalism, Queer Violence. Sexualities. 11(1-2), pp.142-170.
A. Kuntsman (2007). “Error: No Such Entry”: Haunted Ethnographies of On-line Archives. M/C: Journal of Media and Culture. 10(5),
A. Kuntsman (2004). Cyberethnography as Home-Work. Anthropology Matters Journal. 6(2),
A. Kuntsman (2003). Double homecoming: sexuality, ethnicity, and place in immigration stories of russian lesbians in israel. Women's Studies International Forum. 26(4), pp.299-311.
A. Kuntsman, L. Xin (2023). Introduction: Crafting New Approaches for Historising, Politicising and Imagining the Digital. In: Digital Politics, Digital Histories, Digital Futures. Emerald Publishing Limited, pp.1-8.
A. Kuntsman, E. Miyake (2022). The Labour of Digital Disengagement: Time and the Luxury of Opting Out. In: Paradoxes of Digital Disengagement: In Search of the Opt-Out Button. University of Westminster Press, pp.97-111.
A. Kuntsman, E. Miyake (2022). Automated Governance: Digital Citizenship in the Age of Algorithmic Cruelty. In: Paradoxes of Digital Disengagement: In Search of the Opt-Out Button. University of Westminster Press, pp.41-58.
A. Kuntsman, E. Miyake (2022). Consuming Digital Disengagement: The High Cost of Opting Out. In: Paradoxes of Digital Disengagement: In Search of the Opt-Out Button. University of Westminster Press, pp.81-95.
A. Kuntsman, E. Miyake (2022). Digital Disengagement and the Environment: Solutionism, Greenwashing and Partial Opt-Outs. In: Paradoxes of Digital Disengagement: In Search of the Opt-Out Button. University of Westminster Press, pp.113-135.
A. Kuntsman, E. Miyake (2022). Introduction. In: Paradoxes of Digital Disengagement: In Search of the Opt-Out Button. University of Westminster Press, pp.1-18.
A. Kuntsman, E. Miyake (2022). Digital Health: Data Traps at Our Fingertips. In: Paradoxes of Digital Disengagement: In Search of the Opt-Out Button. University of Westminster Press, pp.21-39.
A. Kuntsman, E. Miyake (2022). Education in the Age of ‘Corporate YouTube’: Big Data Analytics Meets Instafamous. In: Paradoxes of Digital Disengagement: In Search of the Opt-Out Button. University of Westminster Press, pp.59-78.
A. Kuntsman, E. Miyake (2022). Conclusion: Paradoxes and the Elastic Continuum of Digital Disengagement. In: Paradoxes of Digital Disengagement: In Search of the Opt-Out Button. University of Westminster Press, pp.137-154.
A. Kuntsman (2020). Reverberation, affect, and digital politics of responsibility. In: Affective Politics of Digital Media: Propaganda by Other Means. pp.69-85.
A. Kuntsman (2017). Introduction: Whose Selfie Citizenship. In: Selfie Citizenship.
A. Kuntsman (2017). Introduction: Whose Selfie Citizenship?. In: Selfie Citizenship. Springer International Publishing, pp.13-18.
A. Kuntsman (2016). Hospitality in Flames: Queer Immigrants and Melancholic Be/longing 1. In: Mobilizing Hospitality. Routledge, pp.145-158.
A. Forrest, M. Middell (2016). Queer Necropolitics. J. Haritaworn, A. Kuntsman, S. Posocco. In: The Psychology of Mathematics Education. Routledge, pp.1-+.
A. Kuntsman (2012). Hospitality in flames: Queer immigrants and melancholic be/longing. In: Mobilizing Hospitality: The Ethics of Social Relations in a Mobile World. pp.145-158.
A. Kuntsman (2012). Introduction: Affective fabrics of digital cultures. In: Digital Cultures and the Politics of Emotion: Feelings, Affect and Technological Change. pp.1-17.
A. Kuntsman (2008). Hospitality in flames: Queer immigrants and melancholic be/longing. In: Mobilizing Hospitality: The Ethics of Social Relations in a Mobile World. pp.145-157.
A. Kuntsman (2005). From "Sexless in Russia" to "Proud Israeli Lesbian": Immigration stories of coming out. In: Sappho in the Holy Land: Lesbian Existence and Dilemmas in Contemporary Israel. pp.153-171.
E. Miyake, A. Kuntsman (2016). Paradoxes of Digital dis/engagement: a follow up study (businesses and services). , Communities & Culture Network+.
A. Kuntsman, E. Miyake (2015). Paradoxes of Digital Dis/Engagement. Communities and Culture Network +, Communities and Culture Network +.
A. Kuntsman (2014). Book Review: The Biopolitics of Mixing: Thai Multiracialities and Haunted Ascendancies. European Journal of Women's Studies. 21, 120-122.
A. Kuntsman (2013). Militarizing Men: Gender, Conscription, and War and Post-Soviet Russia. SLAVIC REVIEW. 72, 206-208.
A. Kuntsman (2010). Book Review: Life as the River Flows: Women in the Malayan Anti-Colonial Struggle. Feminist Review. 96, e8-e10.
A. Kuntsman, D. Lane, M. Myant, JA. Dunn, H. Duquenne, et al. K. Hignett, C. Lamont, N. Abbas, V. Clement, S. Joshi, E. Kavalski, MM. Manjikian, B. Screve, N. Shapkina, K. Ghodsee, N. Sineaeva-Pankowska, G. Wurzer, S. Mckendry. (2009). Book Reviews. Europe-Asia Studies. 61, 1483-1511.
AHRC Peer Review College 2015-2018
Visiting Research Fellow, Aleksanteri Institute, Helsinki, Finland 2019-20
Journal of Middle Eastern Women's Studies
Association of Internet Researchers