
UCL Email: david.cook.15@ucl.ac.uk
Websites: https://theconversation.com/digital-nomads-what-its-really-like-to-work-while-travelling-the-world-99345
Year of start: 2017
Supervisors: Hannah Knox and Adam Drazin
Subject: Material Culture
Fieldsite: South East Asia, digital
PhD Research
Digital Nomads and Imagined Worlds of Work
My current research explores the lives of self-described digital nomads, who work out of co-working spaces in Southeast Asia.
The research focuses on the work practices and routines that are required to sustain working on the road. In addition, the imaginary and material traces that are created by and produced for digital nomads are a focus of this research.
The research explores the functions and roles that coworking spaces play in supporting digital nomads and investigates the elaborate strategies that digital nomads utilise, including digital mediated time management, self-regulation, skills maintenance, image management and personal branding.
Research interests
- Work cultures
- Globalisation
- Cosmopolitan identity and personhood
- Neoliberalism and design cultures
Recent Publications
Book Chapter (Forthcoming): The Global Remote Work Revolution and the Future of Work
Article: Remote-work visas will shape the future of work, travel and citizenship
Conference paper: Eworklife: developing effective strategies for remote working during the COVID-19 pandemic
Article: Five workplace trends will shape life after lockdown
Article: Remote working: the new normal for many, but it comes with hidden risks – new research
Journal paper: The freedom trap: digital nomads and the use of disciplining practices to manage work/leisure boundaries
Article: Digital nomads: what it’s really like to work whilst travelling the world
Presentations & Conferences
Digital Nomads: Tax arrangements and visa strategies as a way of thinking through changing notions of citizenship. One-Day Workshop: The Social Contract in an Era of (Post-)Neoliberalism and Populism UCL
Education History
- MSc Digital Anthropology UCL
- Graduate Diploma, HCI and Ergonomics, UCL
- MA(RCA), Royal College of Art, Degree by Thesis