Mikaela Brough

I am a PhD researcher in the Information Security Group at Royal Holloway, University of London, working as part of the EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT) in Cyber Security for the Everyday. The CDT is an interdisciplinary doctoral centre for research in cybersecurity, with researchers in cryptography, systems security, and the qualitative/quantitative social sciences.

Research Area

My work explores how members of environmental social movements navigate their information security in politically sensitive contexts. To do this, I take a multi-sited, engaged ethnographic approach in both the Southern Philippines (PH) and the United Kingdom (UK). This approach involves formal and informal interviews, embedded observation through extended fieldwork, and generally working with participants in ways that they feel benefit them.

I am not alone in the pursuit of ethnography in information security, as I am part of an amazing Ethnography Group. Overall, this work stresses the complexity of information security research in relation to social movements, and raises questions about how scholars can develop security in context, from the ground. See abstract here

I am supervised by Dr. Rikke Bjerg Jensen and Professor Martin Albrecht, an ethnographer and a cryptographer respectively. My doctoral research is related to, but not funded by, their EPSRC-funded interdisciplinary project Social Foundations of Cryptography. My work is funded through a EPSRC studentship associated with the CDT.

Current Work

I spent 2023-2024 working on this project in the UK (findings forthcoming). I am now exploring these dynamics in the Philippines. The Philippines has a prominent environmental movement and is one of the most dangerous places in the world to be an environmental human rights defender. I recently visited Cebu (and other areas of the southern Philippines) for a preliminary research trip. I will be returning for extended fieldwork in January. My work in the Philippines is a formal collaboration between myself, local universities in PH and environmental advocacy groups.

Etc.

I also like to do things outside my thesis. I am a teaching assistant for computer networking, intro to cryptography, and programming/statistics (mostly Python, though I can mess around in R quite well, and C less so). During an RA stint at the University of Oxford, I worked in other areas of qualitative social research, hence the two publications on family planning.

I completed my MSc in Social Anthropology at the University of Oxford in 2021 under the supervision of Dr. Ina Zharkevich. I have a BA from McGill University. I worked as a chef for ages, full time for a while, but otherwise in conjunction with other activities. I grew up in southern Ontario, but tend to split my non-fieldwork time between London and southern Italy.

Can collaborate professionally in English and Italian. Can hold a conversation in French and Tagalog.

Email me :)

news

Aug 21, 2024	Just got back to London from fieldwork scoping trip in Cebu, Philippines!
Jun 20, 2024	Finished up all interviews for UK fieldwork!
Jun 17, 2024	Lightning talk @ Inter-CDT summer school w/ Bristol, Bath, UCL and RHUL!
May 23, 2024	Risk assessment and ethics officially approved today for first research trip to the Philippines!
May 02, 2024	Presenting at Re-imagining Cryptography and Privacy today!

selected publications

SS

Fertility decision-making in the UK: Insights from a qualitative study among British men and women

Mikaela Brough, and Paula Sheppard

Social Sciences, 2022

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Scholars are interested in better understanding the low fertility observed in higher income countries. While some people are choosing to have smaller families, countries also report a ‘fertility gap’, which is the proportion of people who end up with fewer children than originally desired. This paper investigates some causes of the fertility gap in the UK. We amassed qualitative data from seven focus groups conducted among men and women of reproductive age with different educational backgrounds. These focus groups suggest that social support is an influential factor for Britons thinking about having children, although discussions differed in terms of whether this was support from partners or parents. Discussions with university-educated women featured themes of career opportunity costs, and non-university men contributed insights on the financial burden of parenthood. This exploratory study provides up-to-date material on unwanted childlessness and the low fertility in the UK, and highlights the merit of using qualitative methods in understanding the fertility gap.
SS

Father–Toddler Bonding during the COVID-19 Lockdown: Qualitative Insights from 17 Families in Britain

Paula Sheppard , and Mikaela Brough

Social Sciences, 2022

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The UK lockdowns brought about many domestic changes. One was that many families with young children found themselves in the largely unique situation where fathers who normally worked away and saw little of their children during the day were now at home full-time. This was coupled with the fact that grandparents were now unavailable as lockdown rules prohibited visits and travel and many elderly were especially vulnerable. This study aimed to explore how this novel family situation was regarded by parents of young children and how they thought it would affect their children’s social development. Thematic analysis of interviews with 24 mothers and fathers of toddlers revealed that most parents did not think that the lockdown negatively impacted their child’s development, although they worried about it nonetheless. Having fathers at home was overwhelmingly seen as a positive for both the dad’s attachment to the toddler and the toddler’s attachment to their dad. The narrative around grandparents was more divided; there was an almost even split between parents thinking grandparental absence had a negative impact on the grandparent–child relationship and those who thought it made no difference. This study provides qualitative insight into an unusual domestic situation suggesting that parents felt father-child bonds were strengthened by the lockdown, although it remains to be seen if father-child relationships are improved long-term.
JASO

Review of “Benno Herzog, Invisibilization of Suffering: A Moral Grammar of Disrespect”

Mikaela Brough

Journal of the Anthropological Society of Oxford, 2021

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