I am a cultural studies researcher working at the intersection of visual culture, postcolonial theory, and digital media. My research focuses on how images shape social knowledge, identity, and relations of power—particularly in relation to Blackness and racialized visibility in contemporary digital contexts.

I am interested in images not only as representations, but as active social forces: as objects that circulate, produce meaning, and structure ways of seeing and being seen. Across my work, I attend closely to questions of representation, mediation, and ethics, with a particular focus on how Black lives are made visible, legible, or obscured within digital image cultures.

My research combines theoretical analysis with close visual reading and ethnographically informed observation. It is shaped by a long-standing engagement with photography and visual practice, which informs both my methodological approach and my sensitivity to images as lived, relational, and situated phenomena.

• Visual culture and digital image practices

• Blackness, race, and representation

• Identity formation and visibility

• Postcolonial and decolonial theory

• Image circulation, platforms, and power

• Ethics of looking and visual mediation

• Photography as cultural and analytical practice

Methodologically, my work draws on cultural studies approaches to visual analysis, combining close reading of images with contextual and theoretical interpretation. I work with a range of visual materials, including photography, digital media, and online image practices, attending to both form and circulation.

I am particularly interested in photography as a method of inquiry as well as an object of analysis. My approach is informed by ethnographic sensibilities, archival thinking, and critical reflection on positionality, ethics, and power in research practice.

Across my work, I understand research as a situated and reflexive process—one that requires attentiveness to how images are produced, encountered, and made meaningful within specific social and historical contexts.

For academic enquiries, collaborations, or speaking invitations, please get in touch via email serafina.andrew@uzh.ch