Danielle Lemieux

PhD candidate in Department of Anthropology & Development Studies, School of Social Sciences at University of Adelaide.

I completed my Bachelor of Arts (majors in Anthropology and Asian Studies) and Diploma of Languages (Japanese) at the University of Adelaide in 2014, and completed Honours (first class) in Anthropology in 2015.

Registered member of AAS (Australian Anthropological Society), ANSA (Australian Network of Student Anthropologists), & AoIR (Association of Internet Researchers).

Member of the SGAC (Space Generation Advisory Council, advises to UNOOSA) and team member of PMAS 2017 (Poland Mars Analogue Simulation Mission).

Participant in the Queensland University of Technology Digital Media Research Centre Postgraduate Summer School 2019.

PhD

I am currently finishing my PhD and anticipate completion by mid-2021. The PhD is grounded in extensive multisited, mixed methods fieldwork (ethnography as participant observation and interviewing, surveys, social media analysis and digital research methods, etc.) and explores mediatisation (impacts of developments in new and social media technologies) in technoscientific fields, particularly in the case of space (as an industry and field of science and technology). Fieldworking with people who use these new media technologies (professional science communicators, journalists, info- & edu-tainment content creators, scientists, etc.), I explore their media work, relationships with contemporary publics, and the possibilities they co-create.

I draw on theoretical frameworks and resources from anthropology, critical media studies, STS (Science & Technology Studies), Actor Network Theory and Assemblage Theory to map participants' practice, and consider pressures and tensions that these technological developments and associated trends (neoliberalism, platformisation, etc.) introduce to mediated work and the possibilities of science communication, PUS/PES(T) (Public Understanding of Science / Public Engagement with Science & Technology), and science-society relations, but also the positive and productive possibilities that emerge and practitioners co-create with their publics, navigating technologies in critical and agential ways (technologies affording things like remote participation, live co-presence and experience at a distance, learning and epistemic access, exciting co-construction in cases of distributed or 'flat' content creation communities and digitally-mediated citizen science teams and projects, etc.).

Other Research Interests

Digitally-mediated sociality (online publics, communities, fandom, participatory culture), digital media research methods and research methodology, critiques of modernity (and alternative ways of being and knowing, alternative future visions, imaginaries, and making-practices, etc.), queer, gender, and critical race theory and studies.

Research Assistant for Dr. Shoko Yoneyama in Department of Asian Studies on her research (postmodern animism, socio-ecological crises, critical responses to modernity and alternative ways of knowing & being; youth issues and popular culture including animation).

Awards

University of Adelaide Undergraduate Scholarship

Byard/Tormore Prize for English I

The European Union Prize for European Studies

Australian Postgraduate Award recipient

Presentations/Papers

'Global Responses to the 2019 Kyoto Animation Studios Arson Attack: Perspectives from Digital Media Research Methods and Critical Reading of Notion of Ibasho (place-to-be)', with Dr. Shoko Yoneyama at Ankeny Lab Group 2020.

'Conceptualising Key Participants’ Work as Assemblages: Participants who ‘do social media’ in/for the space industry', Department Seminar for Anthropology & Development Studies (Adelaide) 2019.

'Digitally-mediated work practices on a lunar and Mars analogue simulation mission: on the Media and Outreach Team of the Poland Mars Analogue Simulation Mission 2017',  Department Seminar for Anthropology & Development Studies (Adelaide) 2018.

'Digitally-mediated PUS/PEST and ways of relating with publics in the case of space' presented at Egenis Research Exchange, Egenis: Exeter Centre for the Study of the Life Sciences, University of Exeter, 2018.

'Social Media for Communication in Contemporary Space Projects and Public Networks: Preliminary Findings of Mixed-Method Multisited Ethnographic Research' at the 68th International Astronautical Congress (IAC) 2017, in Adelaide, Australia.

'Preliminary results of the Poland Mars Analogue Simulation', Samuel Hargrove, Guillaume Thirion, Danielle LeMieux, Jennifer Pouplin, Behnoosh Meskoob, Leila Ghasemzadeh, Melanie Grande, Hady Ghassabian Gilan, Kiran Tikare, Carmen Felix, Sebastian Hettrich, Carlos Salicrup, Ilaria Cinelli, Tajana Lucic., at the 68th International Astronautical Congress (IAC) 2017, in Adelaide, Australia.

'Why space colonies will not solve terrestrial problems', Sebastian Hettrich, Nicola de Quattro, Danielle LeMieux, Rainer Diaz de Cerio,  Brenda Hernandez, Tajana Lučić, Kiran Tikare, Hady Ghassabian, at the 68th International Astronautical Congress (IAC) 2017, in Adelaide, Australia.

Teaching

I have taught in the Department of Asian Studies, marking/tutoring in courses like Asia & the World, Introduction to Asian Cultures, Asian Cultures & Identities, and Beyond Asian Ecological Crises over several years.

In 2020 I tutored in Beyond Asian Ecological Crises and coordinated Asian Cultures & Identities (coordination, lectures, tutoring, marking).

I will be tutoring in Beyond Asian Ecological Crises in Semester 1 2021, under Dr. Shoko Yoneyama.