Examining how human values and technology interact in the digital transformation to a smart city

Towards future cities and the cyber-society

James Cuffe is an IRC Laureate whose research will help imagine and understand how our future technological cities will unfold through the project ‘CyberSocial: Anthropology for Future Cities’.

CyberSocial seeks to overcome current issues in urban digital transformation by addressing human values and technical normativity. While technology has the proven capacity to improve social and individual life, we must still answer the challenge of negative technological effects on the social. CyberSocial seeks to determine patterns in cyber-social transformation so that we might mitigate future problems.

James is an anthropologist working generally in the field of techno-anthropology drawing upon philosophical traditions drawn through ethnographic fieldwork. His previous work includes ethnographic research in Shanghai on the effects of mediative technologies in social change published as a monograph with Routledge - China at a Threshold (2021). He is co-director of the Atlantic Anthropological Spring School held annually in Dingle, Ireland.