Devin Proctor
Assistant Professor of Anthropology
Department: Sociology and Anthropology
Email: dproctor2@elon.edu
Phone number: (336) 278-6443
Professional Expertise
Brief Biography
Links
News & Notes
Education
PhD, Anthropology—George Washington University
MA, American Studies—George Washington University
MS, Education—City University of New York
BFA, Theatre; Sociology—New York University
Courses Taught
ANT 1120 Introduction to Cultural Anthropology
ANT 3610 Anthropological Theory
ANT 3235 Anthropology of the Internet
AMS 2100 Concepts in American Studies
ANT 1123 Exploring Virtual Space (Winter Term)
COR 1100 The Global Experience
Dr. Proctor has previously taught at Georgetown University and George Washington University.
Leadership Positions
Dr. Proctor is the coordinator of the American Studies Minor; Faculty advisor for Lambda Alpha, Elon's Anthropology Honor Society; Director of the Program for Ethnographic Research and Community Studies (PERCS); and the faculty supervisor of the Ethnographic Research micro-credential digital badge program.
Current Projects
Dr. Proctor's current projects include:
- exploring constructions of identity and community in online White power extremist groups—specifically through narratives of utopian futures and "traditional" gender roles—in the process of radicalizing young people
- long term online ethnographic engagement with the Otherkin community, a group who internally identify as other-than-human
- examining and disseminating work on the methodology of digital anthropology and digital ethnography
Publications
representative works:
2026. Practicing Digital Ethnography (Edited Volume) forthcoming from Routledge: https://www.routledge.com/Practicing-Digital-Ethnography/Proctor/p/book/9781032660424
2025. "The Storm Before the Storm," Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, (with Chloe Ahmann) https://doi.org/10.1177/02637758251376757
2025. “Reading Fascists Reading Shakespeare: Literary Populism in White Power Fiction,” Public Culture 37(1) (with Chloe Ahmann): https://doi.org/10.1215/08992363-11714141
2023. "The #Tradwife Persona and the Rise of Radicalized White Domesticity,” Persona Studies, 8(2), pp. 7-26: https://doi.org/10.21153/psj2022vol8no2art1645
2022. “What is Cultural Anthropology?” At SAPIENS, September 27: https://www.sapiens.org/culture/what-is-cultural-anthropology/
2020. “The Social Production of Internet Space: Affordance, Programming, and Virtuality” Communication Theory, qtz036, https://doi.org/10.1093/ct/qtz036
2020. “So You Want to ‘Do’ Digital Ethnography.” At The Geek Anthropologist, March 25: https://thegeekanthropologist.com/2020/03/25/so-you-want-to-do-digital-ethnography/
2019. “Wandering in the City: Time, Memory, and Experience in Digital Game Space” M/C Journal 22(4): http://journal.media-culture.org.au/index.php/mcjournal/article/view/1549
2018. “Policing the Fluff: The Social Construction of Scientistic Selves in Otherkin Facebook Groups,” Engaging Science, Technology, and Society, 4 (2018), pp. 485-514: https://estsjournal.org/index.php/ests/article/view/252/166
For a full publication list, see Dr. Proctor's Google Scholar profile