My work centres the cultural study of discourse, politics and identities. I track flows of discourse as they move in and out of the public sphere influencing both individual and group identities, embodiments, and politics—both within cultural groupings and between those groups and the larger structures of society.

Specifically, my research addresses topics such as digital intimacies, the relationship of intimacy and privilege, hybridity and mixed-race identities, the social and cultural aspects new media forms, and non/monogamy in the public sphere. It is situated disciplinarily at the nexus of communication and cultural studies; methodologically within discourse analysis; and draws theoretical energy from a wide range of sources such as feminist, queer, postcolonial, and critical race theories; semiotics, affect theory, event theory and psychoanalysis.

My book, Fraught Intimacies: Non/Monogamy in the Public Sphere (UBC Press, 2015) explores the increased mediation of non-monogamies since the early nineties—in every medium from television, to film, to self-help books, to the Internet—and how such convergent mediation opens these discourses up to societal scrutiny, as well as transformation. By exploring the privileged logics that frame our conceptions of intimacy, I explore the political and cultural implications of how we frame non-monogamy broadly in sexual discourse, as well as how the public sphere presences of three major forms of non-monogamy (adultery, polygamy and polyamory) display a complex relationship with “intimate privilege,” an emergent state in which one’s intimacies are read as viable, ethical or even real.

My new research is on the history of digital intimacies. This project investigates the intimate potentials and problematics of social media forms, drawing critical insights from intimacy theory (a subset of queer theory), but extending its ambit to consider multiple forms of digitally mediated togetherness. This project employs discourse analysis in combination with digital humanities methodologies to investigate past, existing, and emerging forms of digitally mediated intimacy. These include such topics as hashtags as technosocial assemblages; MMOs and avatar infidelity; the politics of race-activist hashtags such as #Ferguson; haptics and digital touching; and the emerging sex robot industry. In conjunction with this project I also edited the collection Hashtag Publics: The Power and Politics of Discursive Networks (Digital Formations series, Peter Lang, 2015). This collection investigates the diversity of publics that hashtags address, with politics and positionalities ranging from subcultural and community maintenance; to speaking back to state, corporate and societal power and privilege.

• SSHRC Insight Development Grant (Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, 2018–2020), $41157
• Awards to Scholarly Publications Program (Canadian Federation of Humanities and Social Sciences/Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, 2016), $8000
• Bourse de Recherche Postdoctorale (Fonds Québéquois de la Recherche sur la Société et la Culture, 2009–2011), $64000
• Bourse de Doctorat en Recherche (Fonds Québéquois de la Recherche sur la Société et la Culture, 2007–2009), $46667 [$20000 held in name]
• SSHRC Doctoral Fellowship (Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, 2007–2008), $20000
• J.W. McConnell Memorial Graduate Fellowship (Concordia University, 2006–2007), $10800

I would gladly serve on committees for students researching digital culture, intimacies, robotics/AI/human augmentics, social media, games, global/diasporic communication; and representations of race, gender, or sexuality in the media.

Books

Single Author

• Fraught Intimacies: Non/Monogamy in the Public Sphere. Vancouver: UBC Press, 2015. Print.

Edited Collections

• Hashtag Publics: The Power and Politics of Discursive Networks. New York: Peter Lang, 2015. Print.

Edited Journal Issues

• (with Suzanne Lenon and Susanne Luhmann) Editor for Issue 37.1 Subject Cluster: “Intimacies and Affects.” 2015. Web.

Refereed Journal Articles

• “The Politics of Gray Data: Digital Methods, Intimate Proximity, and Research Ethics for Work on the ‘Alt-Right’.” Qualitative Inquiry, 25(3). (2019). 312-323.
• (with Meghan Blythe Adams; 2nd Author) “‘Why do I Have to Make a Choice? Maybe the Three of us Could… uh…’: Non-Monogamy and Normative Sexuality in Video Game Narratives and Practices.” Game Studies, 18(2). 2018. Web. http://gamestudies.org/1802/articles/adams_rambukkana
• (with Maude Gautier; 2nd Author) L’adultère à l’ère numérique : Une discussion sur la non/monogamie et le développement des technologies numériques à partir du cas Ashley Madison [Adultery in the Digital Era: A discussion about non/monogamy and digital technologies based on the website Ashley Madison]. Genre, sexualité & société, 17, 2017. Web. https://journals.openedition.org/gss/3981
• “From #RaceFail to #Ferguson: Digital Intimacies, Racism and the Politics of Hashtag Publics.” The Fibreculture Journal: Digital Media + Networks + Transdisciplinary Critique 26 (2015). Web.
• “Mutt, Monster or Melting-Pot? Mixed-Race Metaphor and Obama’s Ambivalent Hybridity.” Ada: A Journal of Gender, New Media and Technology 6 (2015). Web.
• “Is Slash an Alternative Medium? ‘Queer’ Heterotopias and the Role of Autonomous Media Space in Radical World Building.” Affinities: A Journal of Radical Theory, Culture, and Action 1.1 (2007). 69-85. Web.
• “Uncomfortable Bridges: The Bisexual Politics of Outing Polyamory.” The Journal of Bisexuality 4.3 (2005): 142-154. Print.
• “Taking the Leather out of Leathersex: BDSM Identity and the Implications of an Internet-Mediated Sadomasochistic Public Sphere.” GR: Journal For The Arts, Sciences & Technology 2.2 (2004): 39-44. Print.

Refereed Book Chapters

• “Introduction: Hashtags as Technosocial Event” Hashtag Publics: The Power and Politics of Discursive Networks. Ed. Nathan Rambukkana. New York: Peter Lang, 2015. 1-10. Print.
• “From #RaceFail to #Ferguson: Digital Intimacies, Racism and the Politics of Hashtag Publics.” Hashtag Publics: The Power and Politics of Discursive Networks. Ed. Nathan Rambukkana. New York: Peter Lang, 2015. 29-46. Print.
• “Open Non-Monogamies.” The Psychology of Sexuality and Gender. Ed. Christina Richards and Meg Barker. London: Palgrave, 2015. 236-260. Print.
• “Sex, Space and Privilege: Non/Monogamy and Intimate Privilege in the Public Sphere.” Understanding Non-Monogamies. Ed. Meg Barker and Darren Langdridge. New York: Routledge, 2010. 237-242. Print.
• “Taking the Leather Out of Leathersex: The Internet, Identity and the Sadomasochistic Public Sphere.” Queer Online: Media Technology and Sexuality. Ed. Kate O’Riordan and David Phillips. New York: Peter Lang, 2007. 67-80. Print.
• “Uncomfortable Bridges: The Bisexual Politics of Outing Polyamory.” Plural Loves: Designs for Bisexual and Poly Living. Ed. Serena Anderlini-D’Onofrio. New York: Harrington Park, 2005. 142-154. Print. (Published simultaneously in Journal of Bisexuality, see below.)