This lecture considers three of the major contributions of anthropology. The first comes from deep ethnographic research and will be illustrated mainly through case studies drawn from the book Understanding China Through Digital Anthropology, as well as the work of Yiyi Linh. The second, using material from the same book, exemplifies the comparative dimension of anthropology. Evidence from China is employed to expose the ideological foundations of Western concepts of and attitudes to the digital. The third examines the claim that anthropology can provide contributions to a better understanding of humanity and society more generally. Taking examples from the book The Good Enough Life, it considers why anthropology may prove a better guide than philosophy, in considering one of the key aims of philosophy, which is to inform us as to the possibilities and the form of a good life.

About the speaker:

Professor Daniel Miller, Professor of Anthropology, University College London

Daniel Miller is Professor of Anthropology at University College London. He is the co-convenor of the master’s programme in Digital Anthropology. Recent books include: 2026 Ed. with Xinyuan Wang, 人間煙火2.0：人類學家眼中的數字中國; 2026 Ed. with Xinyun Wang, Understanding China through Digital Anthropology; 2025 Ed. with Pauline Garvey, The Age of Retirement: An Anthropological Perspective; 2025 Ed. with Charlotte Hawkins and Patrick Awondo, An Anthropological Approach to mHealth; 2024 The Good Enough Life. 2021 (with ten others); The Global Smartphone: Beyond a youth technology; 2021 With Pauline Garvey, Ageing with Smartphones in Ireland.

Dr Wang Xinyuan, Research Fellow, University College London

Xinyuan Wang received her PhD in 2016 from the Department of Anthropology at University College London (UCL). She is a digital anthropologist at UCL’s Centre for Digital Anthropology. Her publications include the monographs Social Media in Industrial China (2016) and Ageing with Smartphones in Urban China: From the Cultural to the Digital Revolution (2023). In addition to her academic work, Wang is an artist who creates artworks inspired by her ethnographic research, with exhibitions held in the United Kingdom, the United States, and China. In recognition of her contributions to the study of technology and humanity, she delivered the 2020 Daphne Oram Award Lecture for the British Science Association.

Ms Lin Yiyi, PhD Candidate in Anthropology, Beijing Normal University

Yiyi Lin is a PhD student in Anthropology at the School of Sociology, Beijing Normal University. Her research interests include digital anthropology, with a particular focus on forms of digital intimacy among contemporary Chinese youth. Through the cultural production practices of otome game players, she examined how intimate relations are imagined, experienced and materialised in the digital age, and how these practices relate to larger political-economic structures.”

📅 Date: Tuesday, 14 April, 2026

🕑 Time: 4:00pm – 6:00pm

📍 Venue: CPD-3.29

🗣️ Language: English

🔗 Register here: https://hkuems1.hku.hk/hkuems/ec_hdetail.aspx?guest=Y&ueid=105826