Margie teaches and researches the social-political dimensions of emerging technology.

Her work examines how tech like blockchains and biometrics are designed, used, and adapted in sensitive settings — including humanitarian aid, financial inclusion initiatives, and reproductive decision-making.

With a background in anthropology, she often uses ethnographic methods to explore both grassroots and institutional perspectives. Her public interest work builds evidence to understand and challenge contemporary forms of inequality and exclusion.

Current projects

When Blockchain Meets Aid: Her upcoming book (Princeton University Press, 2027) offers the first comprehensive ethnography on blockchain's deployment in humanitarian crisis zones. A major human experiment with new financial technology in Jordan reveals the competing priorities between aid managers, frontline humanitarians, and Syria's refugees.

The Digital Sovereignty Observatory: She is co-Lead Investigator at an international research initiative examining how emerging technologies reshape social and political boundaries. Funded by the Bosch Foundation, the initiative focuses on digital IDs, migration management systems, and the vulnerable groups navigating them.

Crypto Without Borders: Aid cuts in 2025 are shrinking humanitarian programmes, accelerating the use of stablecoins to stretch scarce resources in emergencies. She is leading a research collaboration with the CALP Network investigating the adoption of this type of crypto in humanitarian crisis. This work is funded by the AHRC's Rapid Response Fund.

Digital Grey Zones: Digital platforms—from crypto to gig work—are creating new livelihood opportunities alongside emerging risks for low income groups and non-citizens, operating in spaces that blur conventional economic arrangements. Her latest research and advocacy advances understandings of informal economic activity. This involves an Economy and Society special issue co-edited with Dr Andreas Hackl.

Margie completed her PhD at the University of Oxford in 2022. She has worked as Assistant Editor of the journal Big Data & Society and is a Research Affiliate at the University of Cambridge’s Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy. She is a member of research collectives such as the European Association of Anthropologists (EASA) Digital Anthropology and Anthropology of Economy networks, the Surveillance Studies Network (SSN), and STS-MigTec. Margie also works with Swansea Asylum Support and West London Welcome.

Research interests and PhD supervision

• Digital Anthropology
• Economic Anthropology
• Science and Technology Studies
• Critical Border Studies
• Humanitarianism/Development Studies

Teaching

Margie’s teaching bridges macro and micro questions surrounding digital economies, from geopolitical to cultural considerations. She welcomes dissertation students interested in exploring the connections between digital technologies and social inequities, particularly through ethnographic and co-produced research methods.

Expertise and public engagement

Margie has led multiple open access reports investigating the risks and harms of digital innovations targeting low-income groups and non-citizens—for example, associated with digital currency experiments, biometric checks, and gig work platforms. Through press engagements and advocacy work with international organisations, policy and media networks (UN Special Rapporteur on Racism, Open Migration, Reuters, BBC, CNN), she has advanced critical agendas for research and action 

Selected publications

• Cheesman, M. (2027) When Blockchain Meets Aid: The Human Costs of Innovation. Princeton University Press.
• Cheesman, M. & A. Hackl (2027) Digital grey zones: Unsettled boundaries in the global platform economy. Economy & Society 26.
• Hackl, A. & Cheesman, M. (2027) Dispossessed imposters: Identity workarounds and exploitation in the digital livelihoods of refugees. Economy and Society 26.
• Cheesman, M. (ed.) (2026) Aid and ID: Making People Matter. Hafan Books.
• Cheesman, M. & C. Aradau (2025) Technosocial Reproduction and Humanitarian Reason. e-Flux.