Dr Ash Watson

Dr Ash Watson

Senior Lecturer

Doctor of Philosophy

Arts,Design & Architecture
Centre for Social Research in Health

Dr Ash Watson is a sociologist, writer and Senior Research Fellow at UNSW Sydney with the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society. Her research focuses on technology and culture. She is interested in technologies of memory, intimacy and belonging (especially with queer and creative communities), and methods that centre stories, maps and archives. Her latest work considers the generative gap between reality and imagination in emerging technologies such as AI.

Her previous research has examined people's understandings of personal data and health data, and the everyday impacts of digital technologies during COVID-19. 

Ash is Fiction Editor of The Sociological Review where she heads a unique series of short stories that expand the sociological imagination. She is the creator and editor of So Fi Zine, an open-access publication for sociological fiction, poetry and visual art. Her debut novel Into the Sea was published by Brill in 2020. She makes zines at Frances St Press. She is also an Editorial Board Member of Qualitative Research, and member of the UNSW AI Institute.

  • Books | 2021
    Lupton D; Southerton C; Clark M; Watson A, 2021, The Face Mask in COVID Times: A Sociomaterial Analysis, De Gruyter, http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/9783110723717
  • 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, http://dx.doi.org/10.4324/9781003317111-29
    Book Chapters | 2023
    Watson A, 2023, 'Youth, zines and music scenes', in The Bloomsbury Handbook of Popular Music and Youth Culture, Bloomsbury, London, https://www.bloomsbury.com/au/bloomsbury-handbook-of-popular-music-and-youth-culture-9781501333705/
    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, http://dx.doi.org/10.4324/9781003232032-6
    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, http://dx.doi.org/10.4337/9781800885141.00016
    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, http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-13227-8_3
    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, http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-13227-8_3#DOI
  • 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, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1472586X.2024.2316132
    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, http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/00380261231199861
    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, http://dx.doi.org/10.5204/mcj.2976
    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, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1472586X.2022.2043774
    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, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14461242.2023.2171802
    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, http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/10778004221097049
    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, http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/16094069221078376
    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: an electronic journal, http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/13607804221084343
    Journal articles | 2022
    Watson A, 2022, 'The familiar strange of sociological fiction', Sociological Review, 70, pp. 723 - 732, http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/00380261221109031
    Journal articles | 2022
    Watson A, 2022, 'Writing sociological fiction', Qualitative Research, 22, pp. 337 - 352, http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1468794120985677
    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, http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s12119-020-09794-6
    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, http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0163443720986005
    Journal articles | 2021
    Watson A; Bennett A, 2021, 'The felt value of reading zines', American Journal of Cultural Sociology, 9, pp. 115 - 149, http://dx.doi.org/10.1057/s41290-020-00108-9
    Journal articles | 2021
    Watson A; Clark M; Southerton C; Lupton D, 2021, 'Fieldwork at your fingertips: creative methods for social research under lockdown', Nature, http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-00566-2
    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, http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1329878x20961568
    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, http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/13548565211030848
    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, http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/oir-05-2020-0174
    Journal articles | 2021
    Watson A; Smartt Gullion J, 2021, 'Editorial: Fiction as Research – Writing Beyond the Boundary Lines', Art/Research International: A Transdisciplinary Journal, https://journals.library.ualberta.ca/ari/index.php/ari/issue/view/1947
    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, http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1440783320934180
    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, http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1468794120939235
    Journal articles | 2020
    Watson A, 2020, 'Methods Braiding: A Technique for Arts-Based and Mixed-Methods Research', Sociological Research Online, 25, pp. 66 - 83, http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1360780419849437
    Journal articles | 2016
    Watson A, 2016, 'Directions for Public Sociology: Novel Writing as a Creative Approach', Cultural Sociology, 10, pp. 431 - 447, http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1749975516639081
  • 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, https://docs.google.com/document/d/1kvH1l3MFy1_Fhmqb6GVz_BW2WVAmMxx-/edit#heading=h.76m86r9jjbk9
    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, https://francesstreetpress.com/bits/
    Creative Written Works | 2023
    Watson A, 2023, So Fi Zine #13, Watson A, (ed.), Frances St Press, https://sofizine.com/latest-edition/edition-13/
    Creative Written Works | 2023
    Watson A, 2023, So Fi Zine #14, Watson A, (ed.), Frances St Press, https://sofizine.com/latest-edition/edition-14/
    Creative Written Works | 2022
    Watson A, 2022, So Fi Zine #10, Watson A, (ed.), Frances St Press, https://sofizine.com/latest-edition/edition-10/
    Creative Written Works | 2022
    Watson A, 2022, So Fi Zine #11, Watson A, (ed.), Frances St Press, https://sofizine.com/latest-edition/edition-11/
    Creative Written Works | 2022
    Watson A, 2022, So Fi Zine #12, Watson A, (ed.), Frances St Press, https://sofizine.com/latest-edition/edition-12
    Creative Written Works | 2021
    Watson A, 2021, So Fi Zine #9, Watson A, (ed.), Frances St Press, https://sofizine.com/latest-edition/edition-9/
    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, http://dx.doi.org/10.5210/spir.v2020i0.11319
    Creative Written Works | 2020
    Watson A, 2020, Into the Sea, Brill, https://brill.com/view/title/57983
    Creative Written Works | 2020
    Watson A, 2020, So Fi Zine #7, Watson A, (ed.), Frances St Press, http://sofizine.com/
    Creative Written Works | 2020
    Watson A, 2020, So Fi Zine #8, Watson A, (ed.), Frances St Press, https://sofizine.com/latest-edition/edition-8/
    Creative Written Works | 2019
    Watson A, 2019, So Fi Zine #5, Watson A, (ed.), Frances St Press, http://www.sofizine.com/
    Creative Written Works | 2019
    Watson A, 2019, So Fi Zine #6, Watson A, (ed.), Frances St Press, http://www.sofizine.com/
    Creative Written Works | 2018
    Watson A, 2018, So Fi Zine #3, Watson A, (ed.), Frances St Press, http://www.sofizine.com/
    Creative Written Works | 2018
    Watson A, 2018, So Fi Zine #4, Watson A, (ed.), Frances St Press, http://www.sofizine.com/
    Creative Written Works | 2017
    Watson A, 2017, So Fi Zine #1, Watson A, (ed.), Frances St Press, http://www.sofizine.com/
    Creative Written Works | 2017
    Watson A, 2017, So Fi Zine #2, Watson A, (ed.), Frances St Press, http://www.sofizine.com/

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

Endeavour Research Fellowship, 2017