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Sub-panel: Contemporary Iranian Digital Photographic Cultures: New technologies, Digital art and Popular Photographic PracticesSub-panel organiser: Shireen Walton, PhD Candidate in Social Anthropology, Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of OxfordThe past decade can be said to have born witness to the rise of diverse and sophisticated contemporary digital photographic cultures in and relating to Iran.From the increasingly visible presence of Iranian digital artists in online art networks to the rise of popular online photographic practices such as photography-based weblogging and the use of Flickr and Instagram, these new spaces of creative output have played an instrumental role in wider socio – political as well as artist developments. In all cases, the online medium of the Internet exists as chief exhibitor and communicative vehicle of these timely and decidedly visual discourses, whose aesthetic and epistemic scope invariably extends beyond national and geographical boundaries. Contemporary Iranian digital photographic cultures thus pose new potentials for transnational as much as national socio – cultural engagement and critical reflection.More broadly, the increasing ubiquity of online image – based discourses in contemporary global communications poses fresh epistemological scope for anthropological engagements with photography, positing an embodied researcher in relatively unchartered digital field sites of enquiry. Considering new digital photographic cultures in an applied, ethnographic manner can provide tangible insights for wider theoretical and methodological reflection, particularly concerning the position of researchers vis-à-vis their 'subjects' in increasingly polyvocal and self-representational contexts.This panel’s digital ethnographic focus on Iran seeks to bring together papers that critically introduce specific examples of these latest Iranian photographic visions into the discursive, global visual politics of cultural representations of Iran, including discussions of social salience, artistic agency and political acumen. It particularly invites papers that theoretically and methodologically engage with the theme from a digital-visual anthropological perspective.All submissions should be made via the online form on the official panel page of the conference:http://www.nomadit.co.uk/rai/events/rai2014/panels.php5?PanelID=2590For further information and enquires regarding this sub-panel please contact:Shireen Walton (shireen.walton@sant.ox.ac.uk&#60;mailto:shireen.walton@sant.ox.ac.uk&#62;)Shireen WaltonDoctoral Candidate in AnthropologyInstitute of Social and Cultural AnthropologySt. Antony's CollegeUniversity of Oxfordshireen.walton@sant.ox.ac.uk&#60;mailto:shireen.walton@sant.ox.ac.uk&#62;http://www.anthro.ox.ac.uk/current-students/our-dphil-students/#c9719