Btihaj is an international scholar and media practitioner in the fields of digital culture and social analysis. Her academic research is interdisciplinary in nature and focuses on the intersections between technology, biopolitics and ethics. She looks at these in various contexts including developments in border technologies and biometric identity systems, digital health and self-tracking practices, and museum cultures.

Btihaj’s recent works include a project on the Quantified Self and health tracking via a Marie Curie Fellowship she was awarded at the Aarhus Institute of Advanced Studies and a project on the politics of immunity and Covid-19 supported by the Faculty of Arts and Humanities Research Fund. She is recipient of the Digital Future Institute Fellowship (2024-2025), developing a new project on biometric AI and its application in governmental and consumer spheres.

In addition to her academic work, Btihaj uses filmmaking as a way of communicating her research to the general public. Her films include Quantified Life; Surveillance Culture; Fem's Way; and Borderscapes.

Btihaj holds a BA (Hons) with First Class in Media Studies and Computing Science from London South Bank University, an MA with Distinction in Digital Media from Goldsmiths College, University of London, and a PhD in Sociology from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) where she worked under the supervision of Professor Nikolas Rose. Prior to joining King’s College London in 2010, she taught sociology at the LSE and worked with media organisations specialising in factual programming about the Middle East.

Research Interests and PhD Supervision

• Digital technologies and identification systems
• Philosophies of subjectivity, identity and selfhood
• Digital health and self-tracking
• Politics of borders and migration
• Museums and curation

Btihaj’s research interests are concerned with the ethical, political and ontological aspects of technological developments and their intersection with everyday cultures. She has written extensively on the effects of digital technologies on issues of identity, embodiment, governance and cultural representation. She is the author of Governing through Biometrics: The Biopolitics of Identity (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013) and editor of Self-Tracking: Empirical and Philosophical Investigations (Springer, 2018), Metric Culture: Ontologies of Self-Tracking Practices (Emerald, 2018), and The Quantification of Bodies in Health: Multidisciplinary Perspectives (with Joaquim Braga and Simone Guidi) (Emerald, 2021).

Btihaj has supervised various PhD projects on themes such as gender and contemporary art, self-tracking and digital health, social media affordances, race and technology, and phenomenology of illness and online platforms.

For more details, please see Btihaj's full research profile.

Teaching

Btihaj developed the MA programme in Digital Culture and Society at the Department of Digital Humanities. She currently teaches modules on critical approaches to digital media, embodiment and identity, and the representations of digital culture in film.

She was recently the Pro Vice Dean of Academic Portfolio overseeing curriculum development and provision across the Faculty of Arts and Humanities. She previously held the roles of Education Lead and Diversity and Inclusion Lead at the Department of Digital Humanities. In 2020, she became Senior Fellow of Higher Education Academy.

Expertise and Public Engagement

Btihaj has collaborated with various artists and cultural organisations to stimulate new ideas and creative output, combining academic research with artistic elements. Some examples of her collaborations include:

• Euro-vision: a collaboration with artists, Audrey Samson and Francisco Gallardo, involving an art-led enquiry into the politics of immigration policies and border surveillance in Morocco and Europe. See video summary and podcast.
• Héroes Anónomos: a collaboration with OTOXO, a Barcelona-based film production company, involving the making of series of short films commissioned by the cultural magazine BCN Mes.
• 1984: a collaboration with Headlong Theatre on their adaptation of George Orwell’s 1984, involving putting into creative practice some of Btihaj’s academic research on issues of surveillance and technology, and the co-creation of the Digital Double app.
• (Re)Creating Culture: a collaboration with various UK and Gulf institutions, looking at the changing role of curators and issues of audience engagement and inclusion in museum practices.

Btihaj is a founding member of the Digital Wellbeing Society led by The King Abdulaziz Center for World Culture (Ithra). She is also board member of project, BioMe: Existential Challenges and Ethical Imperatives of Biometric AI in Everyday Lifeworlds, at Uppsala University, and various academic networks and associations such as Surveillance and Society Network and Consumer and Organisational Digital Analytics (CODA).

She has made guest appearances on a number of international media outlets and high-profile events including the BBC Radio programme, Thinking Allowed; the United Nations summit, ID2020; the New Statesman; the Cycling Weekly magazine; Ny Tid; Cheltenham Science Festival; and Sync Summit 2024.

Btihaj has also been advising industries and governmental agencies, such as European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, Sky TV, and Sanitas on issues of responsible technology and digital ethics.

She is Associate Editor of Quantified Selves and Societies Series, Bristol University Press.