Dr Laura Haapio-Kirk

I am a social anthropologist and artist researching wellbeing, ageing, and digital technologies. I received my Ph.D. from University College London in 2022 and am currently a Junior Research Fellow in Anthropology at Christ Church, University of Oxford. I was a Leach Fellow in Public Anthropology at the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland (RAI) and have held visiting research fellowships at the University of Osaka and the University of Jyväskylä.


My first book, Ageing with Smartphones in Japan; care in a visual digital age (UCL Press 2024), provides a critical overview of how experiences of later life are changing in Japan in the context of an ageing society, internal migration, and the uptake of the smartphone. 


My current project explores how people in Finland create and maintain wellbeing both online and offline, highlighting the reciprocal relationships of care that exist between people, technologies, and nature. The project investigates how the embodied, social, and environmental dimensions of wellbeing intersect to support an ageing society. During 2025 I am conducting fieldwork in various sites in Finland, including Lapinlahden Lähde, an old psychiatric hospital which has been turned into a cultural centre for wellbeing in Helsinki. I am a researcher member of Puistokatu 4 - a space for research, work and discourse on the current ecological crisis.



Laura Haapio-Kirk looking at a map

I am working on a graphic book that will tell the stories emerging from my research through a mix of text, drawings, paintings, and collage. Through the art of my research participants and my own illustrations, the book unravels the multi-layered nature of wellbeing and the intimate connection between the wider societies and environments we live in and our inner lives. 

I am sharing this research journey through illustrated newsletters and I hope you’ll join me on the adventure!


Contact me: laura.haapio-kirk (at) chch.ox.ac.uk

Photos taken in the Christ Church College Library by Ian Wallman, featuring Audubon's Birds of America and other library collections.