Leah Junck, PhD

Leah Junck, PhD is a Senior Researcher at GCG. Leah is trained as a digital anthropologist, having completed her PhD and post-doctoral training at the University of Cape Town.

Her interest in technologies - and what it means to be human in the age of AI - has sharpened over years of living and working in South Africa. Leah's work includes exploring human-technology experiences and how they sit in conversation with structural frameworks and the broader public discourse. It also includes thinking through ways of bringing contextual discussions to the relevant tables of decision-making. Overall, Leah’s work is shaped by the conviction that a more inclusive framing of critical digital literacy/expertise is crucial for mitigating the challenges of AI and honing in on its opportunities. She is the author of Cultivating Suspicion: An Ethnography (2019) and Like a Bridge Over Trouble: An Ethnography on Strategies of Bodily Navigation of Male Refugees in Cape Town (2018).