Dr Esperanza Miyake

Personal statement

I specialise in the critical analyses of gender, race and digitality/technology. My current research examines this intersection from the perspective of digital justice and equality, looking at apps, A.I./smart tech, social media and other technopractices in everyday life that oppress, marginalise and otherwise disadvantage minority groups. Related to this area of research, I am currently co-leading (with Angela Daly) a Scottish Universities Insight Institute (SUII) funded project, Valuing Public Sector Data in Scotland and Europe: Data Governance for Economic, Environmental and Social Development. Other recent funded projects (including a British Academy/Leverhulme) have been in the area of digital disconnection, opt-out and the politics of resistance, my latest book (with Adi Kuntsman) on this subject is entitled, Paradoxes of Digital Disengagement: In Search of the Opt-out button (2022), and an edited collection (with Adi Kuntsmand and Sam Martin), Digital Disengagement: Covid-19, Digital Justice and the Politics of Refusal (2023).

My other main area of research examines gender, race and digitality/technology in relation to represenations and embodied practices in media, culture and society. I am currently working on my third monograph (on virtual influencers and digital identities), for the Routledge Studies in New Media and Cyberculture. My previous monograph, The Gendered Motorcycle: Representations in Society, Media and Popular Culture (2018) politicises representations of technology in film, advertising, television and anime/manga within the context of the US, the UK and Japan. 

I have collaborated with external partners from private, public and third sectors, including being part of the Scottish Government's Independent Expert Group, working on the Unlocking the Value of Scotland's Public Sector Personal Data Programme (2022-23). Similarly, I have also been involved in digital health research (health apps/data and Long Covid) which has led me to be part of the Scottish Parliament's Scottish Long Covid Cross-Party Group

My research-informed outputs in international media outlets include articles written for The New York Times, Newsweek Japan, The Conversation. I have also appeared as a guest speaker on BBC Radio 4 and BBC Radio Scotland.

I am currently Chair of the Gender, Equality, Diversity, Inclusion (GEDI) committee for the Humanities. Previously, I was Director of Postgraduate Research for the Humanities (2021-23), and sat on the School Ethics Committee (2020-22).