• Anthropology of Technology & Infrastructure (Digital & Transport Infrastructures; Technology Appropriation; Socio-Technical Change; Technology-Enhanced Learning)
• Digital Anthropology & Digital Ethnography (Digital Culture & Politics; Internet Histories, Ethnography as Methodology & Epistemology)
• Anthropology of Media (Indigenous Media; Media Activism; Mediation of Conflict; Media, Rituals & Performativity)
• Visual Anthropology (Visual Culture & Communication; Digital Visuality)
• Anthropology of Globalization (Transnationalism; Ethnicity & Nationalism in Global Context)
• North America & Europe

Philipp Budka is a research associate and lecturer at the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Vienna. He leads the North American study region in the ERC Advanced Grant project "Building Arctic Futures: Transport Infrastructures and Sustainable Northern Communities - InfraNorth" (PI Peter Schweitzer) and explores transport infrastructures in northern Canada. Budka is co-founder and co-leader of the Digital Ethnography Initiative at the University of Vienna and a member of APRI - Austrian Polar Research Institute. He is currently a member of the lecturer representatives team at the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Vienna.

Budka studied social and cultural anthropology and communication at the University of Vienna (MA / Mag.phil. 2003) and the University of Utrecht. Between 2003 and 2013, he coordinated several projects at the Austrian Latin America Institute and the University of Vienna – mainly in the field of digital teaching and technology-enhanced learning (e.g. Budka & Schallert, 2009). In 2017, he finished his PhD studies in social and cultural anthropology at the University of Vienna with a dissertation on the Indigenization of the internet in Northwestern Ontario, Canada (e.g. Budka, 2015, 2019). For his projects, he has conducted fieldwork in Canada, Mexico, Austria and several internet environments.

From 2014 to 2021, Budka was a lecturer in the MA program "Visual and Media Anthropology" at the FU Berlin and the HMKW Berlin. From 2017 to 2024 he was co-convenor of the Media Anthropology Network of the European Association of Social Anthropologists (EASA) and until 2023 member of the research area "Visual Studies in the Social Sciences" at the University of Vienna. 

In addition to his long-standing interest in (digital) media and technologies (e.g. Bräuchler & Budka, 2020, Budka, 2022, Udupa & Budka, 2021), Budka is currently working in the fields of infrastructure studies (especially in northern and remote regions, e.g. Budka, 2024), digital ethnography (e.g. Palmberger & Budka, 2020) and historical internet research (e.g. Budka, 2021). He has edited Theorising Media and Conflict (with Bräuchler, 2020, Anthropology of Media Series, Berghahn Books) and Ritualisierung - Mediatisierung - Performance (with Luger & Graf, 2019, V&R Unipress/Vienna University Press) and is currently working on two further book projects. A monograph on the socio-technical history of the Indigenous internet environment MyKnet.org and a book on transport infrastructures in northern Manitoba, Canada.

• Budka, P. (2024). Transportation futures: Reflections on a scenario workshop in Churchill, Canada. InfraNorth - Building Arctic Futures: Transport Infrastructures and Sustainable Northern Communities Blog, 31 Jan.
• Budka, P., Davis-Sulikowski, U., Krainer, A., & Seiser, G. (2024). Elke Mader obituary (1954-2021). Zeitschrift für Ethnologie/Journal of Social and Cultural Anthropology, 148, 2 (2023), 327-32. https://doi.org/10.60827/zfe/jsca.v148i2.1318
• Budka, P., Schweitzer, P., Povoroznyuk, O., Schmid, K., & Grill, C. (2024). The future of transport infrastructures in the town of Churchill: Executive summary of scenario workshops. University of Vienna, ERC Advanced Grant "Building Arctic Futures: Transport Infrastructures and Sustainable Northern Communities - InfraNorth". https://infranorth.eu/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Churchill_Scenario_Workshop2023_Executive_Summary.pdf
• Budka, P. (2023). Anthropological notes on transforming transport infrastructures in Canada. In J. Priebe, H. Lempinen & H. Vikström (Eds.), Arctic sustainability transformation: What is it, what can it be, and what does it need to be? (p. 21). Umeå University. Booklet Download (PDF)
• Budka, P. (2023). "Have you seen a polar bear?" - Transportation during "bear season" in Churchill, Manitoba. InfraNorth - Building Arctic Futures: Transport Infrastructures and Sustainable Northern Communities Blog, 28 Feb.
• Budka, P. (2022). Indigenous media: Anthropological perspectives and historical notes. In E. Costa, P. G. Lange, N. Haynes & J. Sinanan (Eds.), The Routledge Companion to Media Anthropology. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003175605-4
• Budka, P., & Bräuchler, B. (2022). The materiality of mediated conflict and resistance. In Media Res: A Media Commons Project - Theme Week "Critical Media Forensics", 11 Feb.
• Budka, P. (2021). Kultur- und sozialanthropologische Perspektiven auf digital-visuelle Praktiken. Das Fallbeispiel einer indigenen Online-Umgebung im nordwestlichen Ontario, Kanada. In R. Breckner, K. Liebhart & M. Pohn-Lauggas (Eds.), Sozialwissenschaftliche Analysen von Bild- und Medienwelten (pp. 109-132). De Gruyter Oldenbourg. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110613681-005
• Udupa, S., & Budka, P. (2021). Social media: Power and politics. In H. Callan & S. Coleman (Eds.), The International Encyclopedia of Anthropology. Wiley. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118924396.wbiea2482
• Bräuchler, B., & Budka, P. (2020). Introduction: Anthropological perspectives on theorising media and conflict. In P. Budka & B. Bräuchler (Eds.), Theorising media and conflict (pp. 3-31).  Anthropology of Media Vol. 10. Berghahn Books.
• Palmberger, M., & Budka, P. (2020). Collaborative ethnography in the digital age: Towards a new methodological framework. Digital Ethnography Initiative (DEI) Blog, 13 Nov.
• Budka, P. (2019). Indigenous media technologies in "the digital age": Cultural articulation, digital practices, and sociopolitical concepts. In S. Yu & M. Matsaganis (Eds.), Ethnic media in the digital age (pp. 162-172). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781351045315. Introduction of chapter available at http://www.philbu.net/blog/book-chapter-indigenous-media-technologies-in-the-digital-age/
• Budka, P. (2019). Von der Cyber Anthropologie zur Digitalen Anthropologie. Über die Rolle der Kultur- und Sozialanthropologie im Verstehen soziotechnischer Lebenswelten. In M. Luger, F. Graf & P. Budka (Eds.), Ritualisierung - Mediatisierung - Performance (pp. 163-188). V&R Unipress/Vienna University Press. https://doi.org/10.14220/9783737005142.163
• Budka, P. (2017). Digitale Anthropologie. Univie Blog - University of Vienna Blog, 9 Jan.
• Budka, P. (2015). From marginalization to self-determined participation: Indigenous digital infrastructures and technology appropriation in Northwestern Ontario's remote communities. Journal des Anthropologues, 142-143(3), 127-153. http://dx.doi.org/10.4000/jda.6243
• Molyneaux, H., O'Donnell, S., Kakekaspan, C., Walmark, B., Budka, P., & Gibson, K. (2014). Social media in remote First Nation communities. Canadian Journal of Communication, 39(2), 275-288. https://www.cjc-online.ca/index.php/journal/article/view/2619
• Budka, P. (2013). Digitale Medientechnologien aus kultur- und sozialanthropologischer Perspektive: Überlegungen zu Technologie als materielle Kultur und Fetisch. Medien und Zeit, 28(1/2013), 22-34. http://www.philbu.net/blog/article-digitale-medientechnologien-aus-kultur-und-sozialanthropologischer-perspektive/
• Budka, P., & Schallert, C. (2009). Transforming learning infrastructures in the social sciences through flexible and interactive technology-enhanced learning. Learning Inquiry, 3(3), 131-142. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11519-009-0045-9
• Budka, P., & Kremser, M. (2004). CyberAnthropology - anthropology of cyberculture. In S. Khittel, B. Plankensteiner & M. Six-Hohenbalken (Eds.), Contemporary issues in socio-cultural anthropology: Perspectives and research activities from Austria (pp. 213-226). Loecker Verlag. https://www.philbu.net/budka_kremser_cyberanthro.pdf

Complete List of Publications