James Cuffe

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James Cuffe

Lecturer

 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4344-8505
20102026

Research activity per year

Personal profile

Biography

Dr. James Cuffe is a Lecturer in Anthropology with the School of Society, Politics & Ethics at UCC where he is co-director of the MA Anthropology Programme. His work combines philosophical anthropology, critical technology studies, and urban ethnography to examine how digital infrastructures reshape everyday life, governance, and subject formation. 

He is Director of the CyberSocial Research Lab at UCC, Co-Founder and Convenor of the European Network for Digital Anthropologists, Co-Founder and Director of the Atlantic Anthropological Workshop, a Fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute and was General Editor of the Irish Journal of Anthropology from 2014 to 2019. 

He has overseen and managed projects with companies such as RPS Ireland (on settlement impacts & socio-cultural integration), and, the Department of the Taoiseach (2010 World Expo, Irish Pavilion exhibition).

He is available for consultancy with industry and government on organisational digital transitions.

He has limited availability for suitable PhD proposals relating to social impacts of new technologies. 

Recent Funding Awards

2025   Lead PI – €220,000, Research Ireland Coalesce, ID: COALESCE/2025/4892 

Title: “Teasa” – Techo-Anthropology of Heat and Sustainability 

2023   PI – €54,697.69, IRC Ukrainian Scholarship Scheme, ID: URS/2023/5L,

2023   Lead PI - €3,000 Future Humanities Institute

Title: Conversing the Void; Humanities and the Conversation Engine

2022   PI - €339,780 Irish Research Council Laureate, ID: IRCLA/2022/2625

Title: "CyberSocial" – Ethnography of a Smart City

Recent Publications

Cuffe, J., & O’Connell, S., 2025 ‘When Heat is not Cosy: Beyond the thermostat.’ In Anthropology in Action, Journal for Applied Anthropology in Policy and Practice – 3:3 2024

Cuffe, J., Walsh, P. & Murphy, F. 2026 ‘Digital Futures and Current Frictions: the technocrisis of childhood socialisation’ in The Information Society – 42(2)

Cuffe, J. & Murphy, F. 2025. 'Being Fungible – They Only Want Us from the Neck Down'. Allegra Lab. 12 Feb 2025 https://allegralaboratory.net/being-fungible-they-only-want-us-from-the-neck-down/

 

Research Interests

 

Social Appropriation of New Technology,

Techno-Anthropology

Philosophy of Technology (postphenomenology)

Actor-Network-Theory

Methodology (CyberSocial)

 

Teaching Activities

 

Theory & Paradigms in Anthropology

Ethnographic Theory & Practice

Atlantic Anthropological Workshop

Cultural Transgressions in Comparative Perspective

Anthropology of Social Control

Techno-Anthropology

 

Expertise related to UN Sustainable Development Goals

In 2015, UN member states agreed to 17 global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all. This person’s work contributes towards the following SDG(s):

  • SDG 4 - Quality Education
  • SDG 9 - Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure
  • SDG 11 - Sustainable Cities and Communities
  • SDG 17 - Partnerships for the Goals

External positions

Convenor, European Network for Digital Anthropology

Fellow, Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain & Ireland

Director, Southill Outreach

UCC Futures (primary)

  • Future Humanities Institute

Other research affiliations

  • UCC Futures - Sustainability Institute

PhD Supervision

  • Available for PhD supervision

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