Sophia Goodfriend
Surveillance, Artificial Intelligence, and Digital RightsI am a PhD candidate at Duke University’s Department of Cultural Anthropology and Fulbright-Hays Dissertation Fellow. Currently based in Jerusalem, my academic work examines the ethics and impact of new surveillance technologies.
Alongside my academic work, I work as an independent researcher with civil society organizations in the region and as a freelance journalist. My writing on warfare, automation, and digital rights has appeared in Foreign Policy, The Baffler, +972 Magazine, The Boston Review, among other outlets. Before begining my PhD, I recieved a Masters in Social Sciences from the University of Chicago and a BA in American Studies (summa cum laude) from Tufts University. My inbox is open for commissions.
My dissertation chronicles artificial intelligence’s impact on military conflict. Leveraging multi-sited ethnographic methods, I
work with digital rights advocates, policy makers, developers, and security industry
experts to understand how algorithmic surveillance has transformed what it means
to wage and live with war.
My research has practical and theoretical implications. Ethnographically, I am concerned with the kind of humanity at stake in new surveillance regimes. Practically, my research investigates the risks posed by new technologies while outlining how automated surveillance can be implemented without eroding fundamental human rights.
A Street View of Occupation:
Getting Around Hebron on Google Maps
Visual Anthropology Review, Fall 2021Read
Forthcoming Spring 2022
Drone Warfare's Redemptive Refrains
Drone Aesthetics: War, Culture, EcologyLondon: Open Humanities Press
Israel’s Far Right Could Escalate Drone Warfare Against Palestinians
Foreign PolicyRead
Point. Click. Occupy.
The BafflerRead
How the Occupation Fuels Tel Aviv’s Booming AI Sector
Foreign PolicyRead
Cyberespionage with Benefits
Boston ReviewRead
When Palestinian Political Speech Is “Incitement”
Jewish CurrentsRead
Featured
Why Are Israeli Defense Forces Soldiers Posting Thirst Traps on TikTok?
Rolling StoneRead
A Political Road Not Taken in America
The New York TimesRead
London, UK
The Banality of Surveillance
Times of Surveillance WorkshopDenver, CO (moved online), November 2022
carceral convenience
Middle Eastern Studies Association Annual MeetingOnline Webinar, March 2022
Under surveillance
MozillaFestOnline Webinar, December 2021
Whose watching: Surveillance in Jerusalem and the west Bank
Ir Amim-City of NationsOnline Webinar, November 2021
Welcome to the panopticon
The Institute for Middle East PeaceWashington D.C. (moved online), October 2020
Google Ayosh
Middle Eastern Studies Association Annual MeetingPrague, CZ (moved online), August 2020
Big Data’s Shadow Archive
Society for Social Studies of Science Annual MeetingSheffield, UK, February 2021
BioPower’s Promise
The Aesthetics of Drone Warfare,An International Research Conference at the University of Sheffield
New Orleans, USA November 2019
A Street View of Hebron
Middle Eastern Studies Association Annual MeetingBerlin, Germany August 2019
Everyday Affects of Surveillance
3rd <Interrupted=cyfem and queer> a convergence curated by the Creamcake CollectiveChicago, IL, May 2017
Affective Interruptions on Birthright Israel
Master’s Program in Social Sciences Graduate Student Research ConferenceMilwaukee, WI, May 2017
Anxious Itineraries
The Big No-A Center for 21st Century Conference at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Medford, MA October 2015
Jewish American Identity/Politics
Tufts University American Studies Shapiro Award ReceptionMedford, MA, August 2014