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Dr Ash Watson

Dr Ash Watson

Scientia Fellow (Level C)

Doctor of Philosophy, 2018

Arts, Design & Architecture (ADA)
Centre for Social Research in Health

Dr Ash Watson is a sociologist and Scientia Senior Lecturer at UNSW Sydney. Her research examines how digital technologies impact people's sense of belonging, wellbeing and inclusion in society.

Ash has an international profile for her innovative methodological scholarship which unites qualitative, creative and digital sociological methods.ÌýShe is an Editorial Board Member ofÌýQualitative ResearchÌýandÌýFiction Editor ofÌýThe Sociological Review. She leads the creative projectÌý,Ìýan open-access publication for experiments in social inquiry as flash fiction, poetry and visual art.ÌýHer debut novelÌýÌýwas published by Brill in 2020. She makes zines atÌý.
E-mail
ashleigh.watson@unsw.edu.au
  • Books | 2021
    Lupton D; Southerton C; Clark M; Watson A, 2021, The Face Mask in COVID Times: A Sociomaterial Analysis, De Gruyter,
  • Book Chapters | 2024
    Lupton D; Watson A; Wozniak-O'Connor V, 2024, 'Sensory Engagements With Lively Data: Attuning to the convivialities of more-than-human worlds', in The Routledge International Handbook of Sensory Ethnography, Routledge, pp. 300 - 311,
    Book Chapters | 2023
    Watson A, 2023, 'Youth, zines and music scenes', in The Bloomsbury Handbook of Popular Music and Youth Culture, Bloomsbury, London,
    Book Chapters | 2022
    Byron P; McKee A; Watson A; Litsou K; Ingham R, 2022, 'Pornography and porn literacy', in What Do We Know About the Effects of Pornography After Fifty Years of Academic Research?, Routledge, pp. 65 - 79,
    Book Chapters | 2022
    Southerton C; Clark M; Watson A; Lupton D, 2022, 'The Futures of Qualitative Research in the COVID-19 Era: Experimenting with Creative and Digital Method', in Matthewman S (ed.), A Research Agenda for COVID-19 and Society, Edward Elgar Publishing, pp. 155 - 174,
    Book Chapters | 2022
    Watson A; Bennett A, 2022, 'Why Do People Read Zines? Meaning, Materiality and Cultures of Reading', in The Cultural Sociology of Reading, Springer International Publishing, pp. 65 - 89,
    Book Chapters | 2022
    Watson A; Bennett A, 2022, 'Why Do People Read Zines? Meaning, Materiality and Cultures of Reading', in Thumala Olave MA (ed.), The Cultural Sociology of Reading: The Meanings of Reading and Books Across the World, Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 65 - 89,
  • Journal articles | 2024
    Lupton D; Watson A; Wozniak-O'Connor V, 2024, 'It’s all about connecting’: using visual methods to surface the multisensory and more-than-human dimensions of health information', Visual Studies, ahead-of-print, pp. 1 - 15,
    Journal articles | 2024
    Watson A; Kirby E; Churchill B; Robards B; LaRochelle L, 2024, 'What matters in the queer archive? Technologies of memory and Queering the Map', Sociological Review, 72, pp. 99 - 117,
    Journal articles | 2024
    Watson A; Watson-Kirby E, 2024, 'Affective routes in interviews: Participants exploring a digital map as a live elicitation method', Qualitative Research,
    Journal articles | 2023
    Lupton D; Wozniak-O'Connor V; Rose MC; Watson A, 2023, 'More-than-Human Wellbeing: Materialising the Relations, Affects, and Agencies of Health, Kinship, and Care', M/C Journal, 26,
    Journal articles | 2023
    Watson A; Lupton D; Michael M, 2023, 'The presence and perceptibility of personal digital data: findings from a participant map drawing method', Visual Studies, 38, pp. 594 - 607,
    Journal articles | 2023
    Watson A; Wozniak-O'Connor V; Lupton D, 2023, 'Health information in creative translation: establishing a collaborative project of research and exhibition making', Health Sociology Review, 32, pp. 42 - 59,
    Journal articles | 2022
    Lupton D; Watson A, 2022, 'Research-Creations for Speculating About Digitized Automation: Bringing Creative Writing Prompts and Vital Materialism into the Sociology of Futures', Qualitative Inquiry, 28, pp. 754 - 766,
    Journal articles | 2022
    Watson A; Lupton D, 2022, 'Remote Fieldwork in Homes During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Video-Call Ethnography and Map Drawing Methods', International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 21, pp. 16094069221078376,
    Journal articles | 2022
    Watson A; Lupton D, 2022, 'What Happens Next? Using the Story Completion Method to Surface the Affects and Materialities of Digital Privacy Dilemmas', Sociological Research Online, 27, pp. 690 - 706,
    Journal articles | 2022
    Watson A, 2022, 'The familiar strange of sociological fiction', Sociological Review, 70, pp. 723 - 732,
    Journal articles | 2022
    Watson A, 2022, 'Writing sociological fiction', Qualitative Research, 22, pp. 337 - 352,
    Journal articles | 2021
    Byron P; McKee A; Watson A; Litsou K; Ingham R, 2021, 'Reading for Realness: Porn Literacies, Digital Media, and Young People', Sexuality and Culture, 25, pp. 786 - 805,
    Journal articles | 2021
    Kirby E; Watson A; Churchill B; Robards B; LaRochelle L, 2021, 'Queering the Map: Stories of love, loss and (be)longing within a digital cartographic archive', Media, Culture & Society, 43, pp. 1043 - 1060,
    Journal articles | 2021
    Watson A; Bennett A, 2021, 'The felt value of reading zines', American Journal of Cultural Sociology, 9, pp. 115 - 149,
    Journal articles | 2021
    Watson A; Clark M; Southerton C; Lupton D, 2021, 'Fieldwork at your fingertips: creative methods for social research under lockdown', Nature,
    Journal articles | 2021
    Watson A; Lupton D; Michael M, 2021, 'Enacting intimacy and sociality at a distance in the COVID-19 crisis: the sociomaterialities of home-based communication technologies', Media International Australia, 178, pp. 136 - 150,
    Journal articles | 2021
    Watson A; Lupton D; Michael M, 2021, 'The COVID digital home assemblage: Transforming the home into a work space during the crisis', Convergence, 27, pp. 1207 - 1221,
    Journal articles | 2021
    Watson A; Lupton D, 2021, 'Tactics, affects and agencies in digital privacy narratives: a story completion study', Online Information Review, 45, pp. 138 - 156,
    Journal articles | 2021
    Watson A; Smartt Gullion J, 2021, 'Editorial: Fiction as Research – Writing Beyond the Boundary Lines', Art/Research International: A Transdisciplinary Journal,
    Journal articles | 2020
    Baker S; Buttigieg B; Cantillon Z; Pavlidis A; Rodriguez Castro L; Watson A, 2020, 'Getting students to ‘do’ introductory sociology: Analysis of a blended and flipped interactive workshop model', Journal of Sociology,
    Journal articles | 2020
    Lupton D; Watson A, 2020, 'Towards more-than-human digital data studies: developing research-creation methods', Qualitative Research, 21, pp. 463 - 480,
    Journal articles | 2020
    Watson A, 2020, 'Methods Braiding: A Technique for Arts-Based and Mixed-Methods Research', Sociological Research Online, 25, pp. 66 - 83,
    Journal articles | 2019
    Watson A, 2019, 'Book Review: Spark', Cultural Sociology, 13, pp. 528 - 529,
    Journal articles | 2016
    Watson A, 2016, 'Directions for Public Sociology: Novel Writing as a Creative Approach', Cultural Sociology, 10, pp. 431 - 447,
  • Reports | 2023
    O'Neill C; Sadowski J; Andrejevic M; Lewis K; van Toorn G; Lobato R; Binns D; Watson A; Wozniak-O'Connor V, 2023, Social Issues in Automated Decision-Making, ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society,
    Reports | 2023
    Watson A; Wozniak-O'Connor V; Lupton D, 2023, Creative Approaches to Health Information Ecologies: Summary Report, UNSW Sydney and ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society., Sydney, ,
    Creative Written Works | 2023
    Watson A, 2023, Bits/Bytes/Dreams, Watson A, (ed.), Frances St Press,
    Creative Written Works | 2023
    Watson A, 2023, So Fi Zine #13, Watson A, (ed.), Frances St Press,
    Creative Written Works | 2023
    Watson A, 2023, So Fi Zine #14, Watson A, (ed.), Frances St Press,
    Creative Written Works | 2022
    Watson A, 2022, So Fi Zine #10, Watson A, (ed.), Frances St Press,
    Creative Written Works | 2022
    Watson A, 2022, So Fi Zine #11, Watson A, (ed.), Frances St Press,
    Creative Written Works | 2022
    Watson A, 2022, So Fi Zine #12, Watson A, (ed.), Frances St Press,
    Creative Written Works | 2021
    Watson A, 2021, So Fi Zine #9, Watson A, (ed.), Frances St Press,
    Conference Papers | 2020
    Robards B; Watson A; Kirby E; Churchill B; LaRochelle L, 2020, 'Queering the Map: Physical traces and digital places of queer lives', Dublin/Online, presented at Association of Internet Researchers Annual Conference "Life", Dublin/Online, 26 October 2020 - 31 October 2020,
    Creative Written Works | 2020
    Watson A, 2020, Into the Sea, Brill,
    Creative Written Works | 2020
    Watson A, 2020, So Fi Zine #7, Watson A, (ed.), Frances St Press,
    Creative Written Works | 2020
    Watson A, 2020, So Fi Zine #8, Watson A, (ed.), Frances St Press,
    Creative Written Works | 2019
    Watson A, 2019, So Fi Zine #5, Watson A, (ed.), Frances St Press,
    Creative Written Works | 2019
    Watson A, 2019, So Fi Zine #6, Watson A, (ed.), Frances St Press,
    Creative Written Works | 2018
    Watson A, 2018, So Fi Zine #3, Watson A, (ed.), Frances St Press,
    Creative Written Works | 2018
    Watson A, 2018, So Fi Zine #4, Watson A, (ed.), Frances St Press,
    Creative Written Works | 2017
    Watson A, 2017, So Fi Zine #1, Watson A, (ed.), Frances St Press,
    Creative Written Works | 2017
    Watson A, 2017, So Fi Zine #2, Watson A, (ed.), Frances St Press,
  • Media | 2024
    Watson A, 2024, 2023: The Year in Sociological Fiction, The Sociological Review Magazine, ,
    Media | 2024
    Watson A, 2024, Speculative fiction for researching the future, ERSC Centre for SocioDigital Futures blog, ,
    Media | 2021
    Watson A; Clark M; Southerton C; Lupton D, 2021, Fieldwork at your fingertips: creative methods for social research under lockdown, Springer Nature, ,
    Media | 2020
    Lupton D; Watson A; Southerton C; Clark M, 2020, From scary pumpkins to bridal bling, how masks are becoming a normal part of our lives in Australia, ,

Long P, Watson A, Alizadeh A, Homan S and Bartindale T (2024-2026)ÌýMapping Australian Homemade, Amateur & Do-it-Yourself Cultural Economies.ÌýAustralian Research Council Discovery Project [DP240102301].Ìý$561,545.00.Ìý

Endeavour Research Fellowship,ÌýAustralian Government, 2017

  • Undertaken at Goldsmiths, University of London

My Research Supervision

Cecily Klim. PhD candidate, Centre for Social Research in Health. "Coming to and from the senses: an embodied approach to experiences of contraception."

Mania Alehpour. PhD candidate, School of the Arts and Media. "How adolescents are constructing their digital culture; a sociocultural perspective."