KEYNOTE SPEECH: BUILDING A HOME IN ACADEMIA: THINKING THROUGH THE PERSONAL NATURE OF RESEARCH AND ITS ROLE IN ACADEMIC INCLUSIVITY

Back to Page Authors: Isa Ananya Spoerry

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Keywords: diaspora, academia, Sri Lanka, digital communication

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Abstract: Whether proposed by a budding scholar or an established academic, research topics in academia often skew towards deeply-rooted personal interests and curiosities. In pursuing these lines of inquiry, academics often construct a scholarly “home” for themselves within research topics that in equal parts excite and appease them. New York University M.A. candidate Isa Spoerry will explore the aforementioned concept via her own experience researching digital communication practices of the Sri Lankan diaspora. The diaspora has long relied on digital communication to maintain cultural, political, and social connections to the island at times when geographic mobility was impossible or undesirable. As a member of the diaspora herself, Spoerry found that Sri Lankans in the diaspora use digital technology such as WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube—among others—to create digital “homes,” redefining the notion of “diaspora” in the process. As such, in seeking out and building a home for herself through research, Spoerry discovered the practices of her research protagonists followed a similar objective. Sri Lankans in the diaspora simultaneously acted as researchers and social scientists through measures including citizens journalism, political organizing, and cultural archiving, by carving out spaces for themselves in the digital stratosphere and unwittingly within the realm of academia as well. In this talk, Spoerry will discuss how and why anyone can and should build a home in academia, models of community-engaged research to make this a possibility, and the importance of making the field more inclusive to all.

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