Mr Craig Ryder

Craig Ryder is a digital anthropologist with research interests that sprawl the digital mix: automation and precarity, synthetic media, and the application of AI. 

In 2020, he was awarded CHASE studentship to pursue a PhD on social media in Sri Lanka. Craig is the founder and head of the Digital Studies Collective (DiSCo), an interdisciplinary network of PhD researchers who have curated the DiSCo Journal; a experimental publication exploring digital art, culture, and methods. Previously, Craig studied Social Anthropology (BA, Sussex, 2011) and Global Digital Cultures (MA, SOAS, 2020). 

He has extensive experience in startups having worked at Roar Media in Colombo, Tectonic in London and co-founded EverMind; a global mental health platform. Whilst Craig has been immersed in the tech and start-up culture, he is critical of it, and advocates for an alternative digital future. 

• Ryder, C. (2024) ‘Becoming Augmented: The latent possibilities of research in a pandemic, Possibilities Studies special issue on ‘Constraint-based methodological innovations’. 
• Ryder, C., (2022) “We Are the Forgotten Lot”, Brief Encounters 1(6). 

Craig Ryder’s PhD explored the sweeping emergence of social media in Sri Lanka and tries to find out how people use platforms for political participation. His nine months of fieldwork in Sri Lanka was spent collaborating alongside activists and influencers. 

Craig also spent six months in 2022 as a visiting scholar at the University of Helsinki (HSSH), developing datafied approaches. Through his theoretical application of ‘digital capital’, Craig’s work is innovative because it mixes digital data and ethnography to create an decolonising approach to the study of social media

• Craig Ryder