Aleena Chia is Assistant Professor in the School of Communication at Simon Fraser University. She uses ethnographic and textual methods to study cultures of creativity such as vocational passion and computational creativity in digital game production, lucid dreaming practices in consciousness hacking, and wellness discourses in social media disconnection. She uses ethnography to investigate gaming's boundary work as structuring categories in post-Fordism and as moral calculations in creative industries. She uses media theory to examine New Age spiritualists' use of neuro-wearables and wellness rituals for creativity on demand.

Dr. Chia received her PhD in Communication and Culture from Indiana University in 2017 and was a postdoctoral researcher at the Academy of Finland's Centre of Excellence in Game Culture Studies in 2018. Her work has been supported by training from the School of Criticism and Theory, funding from the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, and an internship at Microsoft Research New England's Social Media Collective. 
SCMS Panel: Networks & Neuropolitics
 March 20, 2021.

conferences

  • Society for Social Studies of Science panel on "AI and Feminist STS." October 6-9, 2021. Toronto.  
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  • Society for Cinema & Media Studies panel on "Networks and Neuropolitics: Human(isms) in the Age of Intelligent Media" with Joshua Neves, David Bering-Porter, and Orit Halpern. March 20, 2021.
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  • Association of Internet Researchers  roundtable on "Post-Work Productivity: Meanings and Metrics of Productivity from Co-Working to On-Demand Labour" with Melissa Gregg, Mary L. Gray, Pedro Ferreira, Julie Yujie Chen, and Airi Lampinen. Oct 27, 2020.

Talks

  • Invited Talk on "Automated Futurisms in Digital Game Production" at Microsoft Research AI and Gaming Research Summit. 24 February 2021. Watch online.

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  • Invited Talk on "The Post-Work Productivity of Everyday Game Making" at Workshop on The Future of Work in the Age of Automation and AI." University of Toronto Centre for Ethics. 15-16 May, 2020 in Toronto, Canada.​ [Online]
aleena.chia (at) sfu.ca

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