Digital Ethnography

Guiding and transforming our creative practices, this paper argues for a critical investigation of the techno‐material affordances at play in doing visual research with digital media. It interrogates how software and skill might interact to mediate creative engagements with digital materialities. Drawing on two ethnographic case studies of and with the Korsakow System – an authoring system for creating generative multiple links between media assets – I show how software combined with other imaging technologies can (re‐)focus attention and action towards the intangible workings of digital code. Three exercises will demonstrate how a skilled mediation with relational media systems challenges and complements ethnographic filmmaking through the adoption of iterative software and design methodologies. Rather than gaining control over code, the aim is to gain control over the loss of it in the field and in front of the screen. In the context of an advancing digital visual ethnography, such a skilled mediation affords an experiential and responsive mode of knowledge production sensitising us to the complexly layered affordances and constraints of digital materialities and the dynamic density of relations in which they are entangled.

Through a combination of political economy and radical mediation theory, this dissertation argues that current ‘YouTube Stars’ can be understood as a particularly virulent strain of ‘homo æconomicus’, who are produced and commodified through the techno-capitalist structures of the platform. YouTube culture has transformed since its inception in 2005 to increasingly become a conduit for commercial interests, and successful vloggers are nodes in this capitalist flow: absorbing, transforming and spreading the neoliberal political rationality of the platform. I analyse how mainstream vloggers are emerging through and are entangled with the neoliberal rationality of the complex commercial interests, structures and technological affordances of the platform. I conclude by considering the ethical ramifications of, and possible solutions to, the commodification of the self on YouTube vlogs.

Der hier vorliegende ethnographische Text untersucht negative soziale Dynamiken, die durch die Nutzung sozialer Medien entstehen können. Das empirische Material basiert auf Feldforschungen, die zwischen 2013 und 2015 sowohl online als auch offline durchgeführt wurden. Bei dem Fallbeispiel handelt es sich um einen kommunalpolitischen Wahlkampf in der südostspanischen Stadt Murcia. Im Fokus stehen parteiinterne Diskussionen innerhalb eines linksgerichteten Bündnisses, die zu einem großen Teil in der Quasi-Öffentlichkeit sozialer Medien ausgetragen wurden. Einstiegspunkt in den Text bildet eine spezifische Vorannahme, die von den Aktivisten und Aktivistinnen im Vorfeld der Kommunalwahl geteilt wurde. Die beforschten Akteure gingen davon aus, dass die Art von Öffentlichkeit, die soziale Medien für sie generierten, ihnen dabei helfen würde, einen erfolgreichen populistischen Wahlkampf zu führen. Konträr zu dieser kulturoptimistischen Perspektive auf Technologie arbeitet der Text einen Widerspruch heraus, der den Wahlkämpfer*innen selbst verborgen blieb: Er bestand zwischen dem Ideal der demokratischen Gemeinschaftsform, das sie in ihrem Bündnis umzusetzen suchten, und der kommerziellen Logik jenes digitalen Mediums, dessen sie sich in ihrem aktivistischen Alltag hierfür bevorzugt bedienten: Facebook. Dessen Fragmentierung und Algorithmisierung wirkten in dem hier untersuchten Sample als Amplifikatoren bestehender sozialer Beziehungen. Zwar verstärkte das soziale Medium in einigen Fällen das Gefühl von Zusammengehörigkeit, größtenteils entfaltete es aber destruktive Dynamiken. Als „Egomedium“ war es nicht nur maßgeblich mit dafür verantwortlich, dass die Wahlkampfstrategie ins Stocken geriet, sondern auch dafür, dass das kommunale Wahlbündnis am Ende zerbrach. Aus der hier vorgestellten, kulturanthropologischen Analyse ergibt sich nicht zuletzt ein gleichermaßen demokratietheoretisches wie medienpolitisches Argument. Ein global operierendes Technologieunternehmen wie Facebook trägt auch eine Verantwortung für jene Formen von Mikro-Öffentlichkeiten, die seine Software – quasi als Nebenprodukt – in unzähligen lokalen Kontexten erzeugt.

WhatsApp has remained under the radar for it is scarcely accessible to overt scholarly scrutiny. Encrypted chat apps allow for a certain degree of perceived secrecy. Yet the high frequency of civic engagement makes ethnographic research a time-consuming exercise. This article investigates how digital ethnography inside WhatsApp groups requires up-to-date, innovative ethical guidelines. We suggest a two-pronged approach. On the one hand, we should rethink and update 'known' ways of doing ethics, undertaking at least three conceptual operations: going back to the basics, positing as central the notion of 'do not harm', which allows to re-centre the user within the research process; avoid reducing research ethics to a one-stop checklist, to privilege instead a recursive, iterative and dialogic process able to engage research subjects; moving past the consent form as the sole and merely regulatory moment of the researcher-research subject relationship. On the other hand, while thinking through innovative ways of considering ethics in chat app research, we ought to take infrastructure seriously, both the site of research and the research ecosystem; embrace transparency and avoid by all means covert bypasses; and guarantee full anonymisation to our research subjects.
Keywords: chat apps, WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram, digital activism, digital ethnography, research ethics, engaged research

Although much has been written regarding Internet theory, there is still work to be done exploring the nature of lived experience online to assess the validity of such theoretical discussion. This ethnographic research explores the relationship between online and offline experience, the process of online community creation, and tensions between self-promotion and community endeavour, focusing on a group of Hip-Hop musicians on the website Soundcloud. 

Being disembodied from those day-to-day activities that have long created community cohesion and powered the process of enculturation means that online community formation differs from its offline counterpart. Websites such as Soundcloud provide an important locus for musicians to create knowledge-exchange networks, collaborate on musical ventures, and by the sharing of compositions involve themselves in collective musical exploration. However, a key question is whether such connections lead to the creation of social bonds. This research sought to evaluate the extent of communal processes on Soundcloud through ethnographic research and extended discussions with twenty users, aiming to discover whether their actions are driven commercially by the desire for promotion or by shared, communal goals.

The findings reveal a surprising depth of community and local identity online, with users regular meeting offline to compose and organizing concerts to create live performance opportunities. Musicians are also coming together to create independent labels to help promote their music as collectives, and developing music deeply rooted in local sounds. This combination of high levels of online communication, and an ongoing process of organization and performance offline initiates a move from connections to the formation of social bonds and the building of offline friendships and communities based around Soundcloud as an online hub.

While previous digital ethnomusicology has focused on online experience, this preliminary research illustrates the importance of an integrative approach that considers both the online and the offline worlds.

The internet has always been a boys club. Women who choose to delve deeper into the net than their email inboxes needn't look very far to find themselves bombarded by the proliferation of archaic negative gender-based stereotypes in almost every digital space, including online games, meme culture, forums, online journalism, YouTube, and beyond. Every major platform and communication model online appears to be a megaphone for men to remind women that women don't belong or that they are only allowed to participate if they accept their role as objects of admiration or quiet, non-opinionated users, in the event they aren't deemed attractive enough for the former role. It is not uncommon for women online to be stalked, to receive death threats, and to be doxxed. And it is implicitly accepted that women will be under constant scrutiny in most digital spaces, especially if they dare to question these pervasive misogynistic field conditions. These threats can be alarming even when exclusively digital, as women have been raped in online spaces as early as 1993 (Dibbell, 1993).

*Published by Nordisk Tidsskrift for Informationsvidenskab og Kulturformidling

Bumble brands itself as a feminist dating app that’s designed to empower women. According to Bumble’s website, the app was developed to “challenge the antiquated rules of dating” by requiring those who identify as women to initiate communication with men they match with.
But my research shows that Bumble, despite purporting to empower women, leaves many female users feeling frustrated and vulnerable. This disconnect can be linked in part to the ways in which many men engage with online dating apps.

Memes have become an important linguistic tool not only for communicating emotions and ideas, but also are integral to constructing the self in online space. This paper concentrates on copper miners in northern Chile and the ways they use memes to make claims related to (hetero)sexuality, mestizaje, and nationalism. With men at the mine during week-long shifts and families in towns several hours away, social media is important for maintaining communication as well as representing the self. Miners present their labor as central to their sense of self, with memes that indirectly index heterosexuality, modernity associated with resource extraction, and racial mestizaje linked to nationalism. The visibility of these memes across spaces of both mine and town gives men an opportunity to construct a cohesive digital self, with implications for reinforcing assumptions about what is appropriate gender performance.

El presente texto pretende ser una presentación de un área de trabajo en antropología al que podríamos denominar 'ciberantropología' o 'antropología del ciberespacio' de aún escasa trayectoria en lengua castellana, a pesar de su indudable interés socio-antropológico.

En él, se abordan diversas problemáticas teóricas y metodológicas al respecto de la 'ciberantropología'. Concretamente, y después de unas líneas introductorias, discutimos aspectos referentes al 'Objeto' y la definición de la 'antropología del ciberespacio'.
En un segundo bloque, se presentan algunas consideraciones referentes al método y las técnicas a utilizar en la práctica de la 'etnografía del ciberespacio'.

The emergence of new (digital) methods beyond the circumscribed limits of academia challenges scholars to reconsider how the social sciences may reinvent their methods. The process of redistribution offers the opportunity to expand their repertoire drawing inspiration from, or even incorporating, those methods developed by amateurs, non-experts and technology users. This chapter examines one of such method called prototyping, a socio-material device for the production of knowledge. I approach prototyping as an empirical object that forms part of the social worlds I have researched. My discussion is based on an ethnography undertaken in 2010 at the critical centre Medialab-Prado,  an institution that works at the intersection of art, science and technology. The activity of Medialab-Prado is organized around the notion and practice of prototyping, which involves tinkering with technologies, recycling materials, and extensively documenting the process.

Lo digital como campo etnográfico. Felipe Palma I. Escuela de Antropología UC 2020 Dada la coyuntura del encierro pandémico y el claustro bio-político al que, por razones de salud pública nos vemos forzados, el único espacio de relación con el exterior es el de la red y sus materialidades digitales. Es este entonces, el campo al que dirigiremos nuestra atención antropológica, explorando las posibilidades de una etnografía digital. ¿Cómo abordar el estudio etnográfico en el ámbito de lo digital? Aquí me gustaría proponer una imagen sencilla que nos permita acercarnos a esta pregunta, basada en una categorización de los mundos posibles que podrían emerger de este tipo de etnografías. 1. Data (archivos) La red es un acopio incesante de archivos digitales, sobre prácticamente cualquier tema que se imagine. Una etnografía digital podría, entonces, trabajar con archivos digitales, ya sean colecciones oficiales o elementos dispersos en la red. Para el contexto de este curso, los archivos disponibles se verán restringidos a imágenes, sonidos y videos enmarcados dentro de la temática propuesta. A partir de este eje curatorial, se deberán recolectar, almacenar, clasificar y combinar (H. Becker) una serie de materiales de archivo digital, los que funcionarán como data etnográfica para la producción de una pieza audiovisual.

Based on digital and conventional ethnography, this paper discusses how Bosnian refugees utilize digital technologies and new media to recreate, synchronize and sustain their identities and memories in the aftermath of ethnic cleansing and genocide and in the contexts of their new emplacements and home-making practices in the diaspora. In addition to discussing representations of displacement and emplacement in the "digital age", the paper also aims to make a contribution to the understanding and application of digital ethnography as an emerging method of inquiry in anthropology and related social science and humanistic disciplines. While some researchers see digital ethnography as a form of research based exclusively online, it is also crucial to understand the online world in the context of the real world-made of real people, places and social relations.

This is an original model of Collaborative Digital Autoethnography called #kachinlifestories that focused on life stories of Kachin people across the world originating from Myanmar, China and India. #kachinlifestories was supported by a large KAKENHI Young Scientist Category “A” multi-year grant at JPY 23.5 million in the field of Cultural Anthropology awarded by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (2011-2016). #kachinlifestories is essentially a crowd generated, living digital autoethnographic narrative “database”, or as I prefer, a collaborative digital autoethnographic ecology where ordinary Kachin people share snippets of their life stories through their individual volitions conglomerating into a larger collage of being through the hashtag #kachinlifestories on major social media network systems. This is an original and disruptive social scientific innovation. This project has been on-going since 2009, with the hashtag regularly active since Dec 2012.

Activism on the Web examines the everyday tensions that political activists face as they come to terms with the increasingly commercialized nature of web technologies and sheds light on an important, yet under-investigated, dimension of the relationship between contemporary forms of social protest and internet technologies.

Drawing on anthropological and ethnographic research amongst three very different political groups in the UK, Italy and Spain, the book argues that activists’ everyday internet uses are largely defined by processes of negotiation with digital capitalism. These processes of negotiation are giving rise to a series of collective experiences, which are defined by the tension between activists’ democratic needs on one side and the cultural processes reinforced by digital capitalism on the other. In looking at the encounter between activist cultures and digital capitalism, the book focuses in particular on the tension created by self-centered communication processes and networked-individualism, by corporate surveillance and data-mining, and by fast-capitalism and the temporality of immediacy.

Activism on the Web suggests that if we want to understand how new technologies are affecting political participation and democratic processes, we should not focus on disruption and novelty, but we should instead explore the complex dialectics between digital discourses and digital practices; between the technical and the social; between the political economy of the web and its lived critique.

The digital possibilities for ceramics included here primarily address documenting ceramic education processes, building and engaging communities, and extending studio activities into the web space. In this context, “digital” is meant to refer to computer technologies: especially relating to web resources. These digital possibilities are explored as a challenge to the dichotomy of real and tactile clay versus removed and virtual Internet that sometimes arises when considering clay and computers. In this paper, I will argue that web and real-world communities in ceramics are characterized by similar qualities. Additionally, this research addresses the curricular issue of how web resources may supplement ceramic art history and extend student-centered learning. Finally, this paper will also explore the nature of the interplay between computer technology and clay.

_Singing the Congregation: How Contemporary Worship Music Forms Evangelical Community_ examines how the widespread adoption of a pop-rock-style congregational music shapes the way evangelical Christians understand worship. The book demonstrates that participatory worship music performances have brought into being new religious social constellations (“modes of congregating”). Through detailed ethnographic accounts of five of these modes—concert, conference, church, public, and networked congregations—this book seeks to reinvigorate the analytic categories of “congregation” and “congregational music.” Drawing from theoretical models in ethnomusicology, congregational studies, and contemporary ecclesiology, the congregation is re-conceived as a fluid, contingent social constellation that is actively performed into being through communal practice—in this case, the musically-structured participatory activity known as “worship.” By extension, “congregational music-making”  is recast as a participatory religious musical practice capable of weaving together a religious community inside and outside local institutional churches. Congregational music-making is not only a means of expressing local concerns and constituting the local religious community; it is also a potent way to identify with far-flung individuals, institutions, and networks that comprise this global religious community. The unique congregations explored in each chapter include but extend far beyond local churches, revealing widespread conflicts over religious authority and far-ranging implications for how evangelicals position themselves relative to other groups in North America and beyond.


The introduction sets out the book’s scope, argument, and goals, places the musical repertoire and religious community in historical and cultural context, and frames the study in relationship to recent scholarship in ethnomusicology, evangelical studies, and congregational music studies. It defines contemporary worship music in North American and global perspectives and discusses its relationship to closely related Christian popular music genres. The chapter then situates the rise of contemporary worship music in relationship to widespread conflicts over shifts in evangelical worship practices known as the “worship wars,” the development of the Christian music recording industry, the adoption of new technologies within congregational worship, and the influence of pentecostal-charismatic Christian practices. Finally, in describing the book’s research methods, I explore the challenges faced navigating distance and proximity in the field as a result of my own religious upbringing as an evangelical and my complex relationship to communities in my study.

Internet has been available for the public during the past thirty years, and is perceived as having radically changed the terms of LGBTQ peoples’ possibilities of connecting with one and other, especially for LGBTQ people in rural spaces. With a queer phenomenological approach, the overall aim of the thesis is to analyze how people come to find their way in life from a non-heterosexual position. The aim is more precisely to study LGBTQ peoples’ use of social media and how this relates to queer orientations.

The main material consists of fifteen interviews with LGBTQ people from the north of Sweden, focusing on the usage of digital environments and its importance for the informants’ queer orientations. The material also includes online observations from Facebook and Qruiser, as well as observations of two rural and queer themed Facebook groups and two rotating curated Instagram accounts. From one of these Instagram accounts, the entries of three informants living in the north of Sweden were collected. The material also includes press material and marketing of the app Grindr available at Grindr.com, App Store and the related site INTO.

In the thesis, questions about when experiences are made, and where they are made are of importance. Particular interest is thus focused on time and geographical location, mainly focusing on the north of Sweden. With inspiration from actor network theory, it is taken into account how digital materiality, together with time and space, co-create conditions for use of social media and the understanding of these types of digital spaces. The thesis is centered around themes that came forth in the material: significance of digital environments in LGBTQ peoples’ lives, problems and possibilities in relation to openness and visibility, and how social media platforms are used to bring about change and re-negotiate notions of geographical space and sexual orientation. The thesis shows the significance of digital, geographical, human as well as non-human relations and norms that are of importance regarding queer orientations and its bearings.

Esta tese de doutorado coloca em questão os autorretratos digitais comumente nomeados enquanto “selfies” como práticas que revelam diferentes modos de experimentação cotidiana. O objetivo principal, portanto, é seguir a experiência relacionada à produção de fotografias digitais chamadas selfies. O direcionamento para a pesquisa não está na investigação do caráter imagético da selfie, ou na exploração de redes sociotécnicas associadas ao dispositivo fotográfico, mas em sua constituição enquanto prática – cotidiana, situada e em constante transformação através da experiência. A partir de um diálogo com o empirismo radical de William James, apresenta-se o problema em termos de suas consequências práticas: O que constitui, em termos práticos, fazer uma selfie? Quais as diferenças localizadas produzidas ao se pensar na selfie não como um tipo de imagem, mas como uma prática? Ou seja: através de quais processos a prática de selfie se constrói em um cotidiano fotográfico? São essas questões, conjuntamente com uma proposta de seguir a experiência, que guiam a construção de uma investigação realizada enquanto uma etnografia diante da prática de selfie. Dessa forma, traça- se um modo de seguir a experiência que se desenvolve no rastreamento das diferenças práticas, em um caráter processual de propagação e conexão a partir de novas experiências, e na constituição de um trajeto a ser seguido. O ponto de partida para a investigação localiza-se em uma praça, na qual começa-se a observar e interagir – considerando os espaços geográficos e digitais como um contínuo ambiente de observação – com diferentes práticas de selfie. A partir dessas primeiras observações, as possibilidades de novos caminhos passam a ser delineados, e começa-se a acompanhar o cotidiano fotográfico de diferentes pessoas que se tornam, aos poucos, personagens etnográficos. Essa trajetória, de seguir a experiência conjuntamente com os personagens, demonstra uma prática de selfie que se constrói nas diferenciações cotidianas e modos de experimentação que passam pelas maneiras através das quais se desenvolvem: negociações entre vergonha e visibilidade; co-construção de práticas através de performatividades algorítmicas; possibilidades conversacionais em práticas material- discursivas; e modulações da intimidade em experiências afetivas. Aponta-se, ainda, que esses modos são transpassados por um trajeto de aprendizagem de relatar a si mesmo, através do qual a selfie vai se constituindo enquanto prática. É nesse sentido, em conjunto com as particularidades da prática cotidiana de selfie apresentadas em cada capítulo, que se propõe (e experimenta-se) uma tomada de posição investigativa baseada na experiência – e, através dela, argumenta-se e chama-se atenção para a necessidade de aprender a articular modos possíveis para segui-la levando em consideração as produções de diferença práticas.

Nhân học số là một khái niệm khá mới mẻ trong lĩnh vực khoa học nhân văn. Thuật ngữ này mới xuất hiện trong khoảng hơn một thập kỉ vừa qua khi con người bắt đầu bước vào kỉ nguyên của cách mạng công nghiệp  4.0. Thời đại kỹ thuật số gián đoạn, như Hine (2015) chỉ ra, về cơ bản là một hiện tượng đại chúng “được nhúng, thể hiện và thường nhật”. Theo Hine (2015, chương 2),  đối với nhiều người trên thế giới, Internet là một phần không thể thiếu trong cuộc sống hằng ngày của chúng ta và/hoặc một phần tích hợp của bối cảnh sống; được “cắm sâu vào” không còn là một nỗ lực siêu việt mà là “một sự mở rộng của những cách hiện hữu và hành động khác trên thế giới” (loc 880); và kết quả là, chúng ta sử dụng Internet và mảng thiết bị kỹ thuật số liên quan của nó (Internet of Things) theo kiểu bình thường, không nổi bật. Các công cụ kỹ thuật số đã tạo ra những nội dung nhân học được số hóa với một dung lượng tưởng chừng như vô tận. Chính sự phong phú về nội dung trong cuộc sống con người ngày càng được  số hóa nhiều hơn, giàu hơn, phong phú hơn  đã  thúc đẩy công nghệ đám mây để lưu trữ nguồn  dữ liệu  tưởng  như  vô tận  này. Trên  toàn cầu các  ứng  dụng lớn như Youtube, Facebook /Zalo, Twitter là nền tảng để thể hiện tất cả các sản phẩm được số hóa bao gồm: ảnh quét, ghi âm tiếng nói, phim video, v.v. sang số hóa. Và quan trọng nhất là những sản phẩm này thông qua các nền tảng gần như là miễn phí đến với tất cả cộng đồng trong không khí chia sẻ, giao lưu và đối thoại.

This article uses ‘food selfies’ posted on social media as a means of exploring the changing spatio-temporal characteristics of eating practices. It is inspired by a research that views the digital practice of posting food selfies on social media as a complex socio-cultural phenomenon. In this research, images of food and eating or ‘food selfies’, posted on Facebook were used to follow the eating practices of university students on and off campus. This article argues that such digital methods not only offer an innovative means of capturing social practices in motion, but they also reveal hidden or ignored aspects of practices that may not be evident from conventional methods. In particular, it argues that the affordances of social media platforms such as Facebook enable privileged access to people’s everyday social practices. The article proposes that such digital practices provide an on-going method of research that may offer institutions access to real time and archival data that is neither spatially nor temporally constrained

Digital Rebellion examines the impact of new media and communication technologies on the spatial, strategic, and organizational fabric of social movements.


Todd Wolfson reveals how aspects of the mid-1990s Zapatistas movement--network organizational structure, participatory democratic governance, and the use of communication tools as a binding agent--became essential parts of Indymedia and other Cyber Left organizations. From there he uses oral interviews and other rich ethnographic data to chart the media-based think tanks and experiments that continued the Cyber Left's evolution through the Independent Media Center's birth around the 1999 WTO protests in Seattle.


Melding virtual and traditional ethnographic practice to explore the Cyber Left's cultural logic, Wolfson maps the social, spatial and communicative structure of the Indymedia network and details its operations on the local, national and global level. He looks at the participatory democracy that governs global social movements and the ways democracy and decentralization have come into tension, and how "the switchboard of struggle" conducts stories from the hyper-local and disperses them worldwide. As he shows, understanding the intersection of Indymedia and the Global Social Justice Movement illuminates their foundational role in the Occupy struggle and other emergent movements that have re-energized radical politics.


"Combining the passion of an activist and the reasoned arguments of a scholar, Wolfson wonderfully details the emergence of the Cyber Left. In Digital Rebellion he not only celebrates its political potential but also, and more importantly, provides a lucid critique of the forms it has taken thus far."--Michael Hardt, co-author of Declaration and Empire


"Makes an original contribution through the depth of the empirical case studies of Cyber Left organization. . . . I cannot think of another book that puts so much of the story of the U.S. left's experiments with the creation of an 'electronic fabric of struggle' within a single volume. . . . The author's knowledge, thoughtfulness, and political passion is evident." --Nick Dyer-Witheford, author of Games of Empire: Global Capitalism and Video Games

In this blog post, I attempt to define the feelings that impress binary gender expectations in place with the concept of hetero-comfortability from my ongoing ethnographic work in VRChat. Hetero-comfortability is a process of recognition, where feelings of familiarity — historically established through hetero-conditioning — create impressions that allow one to find comfort in the continuing appearance of hetero-signifiers. As Sara Ahmed (2004b) notes, “To follow the rules of heterosexuality is to be at ease in a world that reflects back the couple form one inhabits as an ideal.”

The idea of this visual essay is twofold; on the one hand it is a photographic commentary, an exploration of the increasingly central role that digital technologies have in our everyday life. On the other, it presents the beginning of a research agenda that is intended to explore ethnographic questions visually. It draws from a myriad of different disciplines and approaches, from cultural anthropology to art, from digital media to urban sociology. Using a transversal method that has its roots in participant observation, street photography and artistic practices, the aim of this visual commentary is to reflect on the relationship between the city, technologies and people.

The effects of revenge porn spread via modern technologies ranging from focused examples (i.e, Snapchat and Facebook) will be investigated throughout this research paper. It will also discuss how this wave of new media is conflicted with Islamic beliefs. A variety of examples will be presented through a progressive lens of positivity as social networks are leveraged across Islamic communities. Through the usage of digital ethnography, the research will make references to the inspiring women who are changing the ways the western world's opinion of the Muslim people. The essay will briefly touch upon the difference between the ways women are blackmailed over in conservative countries, compared to those in western societies asking questions such as 'Are women shamed differently?'

Opublikowane w:
Colloquia Anthropologica II, red. J. Jasionowska, K. Kaniowska, Warszawa: Oficyna Naukowa 2017, s. 177-193.
Nowe wyzwania antropologii politycznej. Etnografia usieciowionej rzeczywistości Abstrakt: Cyfrowy aktywizm to nowe zjawisko, ściśle związane z możliwościami technologicznymi Web 2.0, które zasadniczo zmienia dotychczasowe formy zaangażowania politycznego. Cyfrowe technologie umożliwiają nowe formy oporu i kontrolowania władzy, warunkują nowe sposoby protestu i zmuszają instytucje władzy do większej otwartości i przejrzystości. Na ile nowe formy ruchów społecznych wykorzystujące nowe możliwości technologiczne zmieniają ugruntowane instytucje władzy? Czy cyfrowy aktywizm doprowadzi do zmian neoliberalnej demokracji? Oto nowe pytania antropologii politycznej XXI wieku.

This is a draft of a forthcoming paper in an collection edited by Patricia Leavy entitled The Field of Qualitative Research. Forthcoming in late 2020. This is a general overview, but highlighting topics, issues, and challenges for doing qualitative research in online, or digitally saturated social contexts. Focus is both practical and philosophical.

Sindaca, architetta, avvocata: c’è chi ritiene intollerabile una declinazione al femminile di alcune professioni. E dietro a queste reazioni c’è un mondo di parole, un mondo fatto di storia e di usi che riflette quel che pensiamo, come ci costruiamo.
Attraverso le innumerevoli esperienze avute sui social, personali e dell’Accademia della Crusca, l’autrice smonta, pezzo per pezzo, tutte le convinzioni linguistiche della comunità italiana, rintracciandone l’inclinazione irrimediabilmente maschilista.

Questo libro mostra in che modo una rideterminazione del femminile si possa pensare a partire dalle sue parole e da un uso consapevole di esse, vero primo passo per una pratica femminista. Tutto con l’ironia che solo una social-linguista può avere.

La verità è che i femminili sono comuni nelle professioni in cui le donne erano abituali, e meno comuni laddove le donne, fino a tempi recenti, erano una rarità. Ha senso quindi mantenere distinzioni tra mestieri al femminile e mestieri al maschile? E se fosse
proprio questa una forma di discriminazione? “Se faccio un mestiere figo, allora mi definisco al maschile. Ma operaie, sarte, maestre, stagiste tranquillamente”.

This article seeks to build a digital ritual framework for the analysis of social gaming and social networking. The architectural design that intertwines Facebook and FarmVille is heightened by the formal and informal participation in ritual practices, which we theorize as digital rituals. Facebook and FarmVille provide a substantive case study that delves into the topical blurring of lines around the game space or magic circle. Through digital ethnographic methodologies the article identifies a number of digital ritual engagements that fit well with Grant McCracken's (1986) four different kinds of consumer rituals: exchange rituals, possession rituals, grooming rituals, and divestment rituals. Social gaming is contextualized as the extension of digital third places complicating distinctions between social network and social networking sites. Beyond simply phatic communication or decompression, FarmVille and Facebook through digital ritual participation are increasingly the manifestation of our networked interests, communities, and lives.

Political campaigning on social media in Fiji was first witnessed in the 2014 national election. In the Fiji 2018 general election, social media political campaigning had evolved with greater complexity and a wider variety of implications. This research examines and highlights the use of social media by political parties and candidates in the 2018 national elections. This examination provides comparative social media discussions between the two elections; 2014 and 2018. The research uses digital ethnography as a methodology to examine and highlight social media use, by political parties and candidates in Fiji’s 2018 national elections. The research found that FijiFirst, as the ruling government, had significant advantage in Fiji’s social media landscape. However, opposition social media efforts and growing Facebook ‘reactions’ were beginning to challenge FijiFirst's social media dominance.

Abstract: In this volume, we brought together “seeders” of the #kachinlifestories project to write a chapter each of their life stories to illustrate the diverse aspects of life as a Kachin amidst on-going political instability, opportunities in a globalizing world and increased individual mobility. We use the term “seeders” to describe Kachin volunteers who came into the project, saw the value of autoethnographically representing themselves digitally in the larger canvas of being Kachin and worked to encourage fellow Kachin to participate in this public digital project. Specifically, two capacity building workshops held in Chiang Mai, 2012 and Yangon, 2013 brought together this initial group of seeders. When we held the first workshop in 2012, the idea of collaborative digital autoethnography was entirely new and strange to the small group of Kachin volunteers. Nevertheless, the volunteers put their faiths in this ambitious idea and organized a large scale workshop in Yangon, 2013 that brought together Kachin volunteers from all over Myanmar and overseas. With these two workshops, #kachinlifestories as a conglomerating connector began to grow steadily over major social media system networks. By 2015, #kachinlifestories has conglomerated into a formidable uncollective snapshots of digital autoethnographic life stories in tens of thousands. How has this changed the autoethnographic awareness of Kachin participants? To answer this question, we organized a writing workshop in Bangkok, 2015 and brought together a select group of these seeders. Their task, to put in text a chapter of their life stories or of their loved ones. The result was an anthological collection of stories beyond the cultural script laid out by anthropological approaches framed by “experts.”

This thesis examines the alternative media landscape at the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Games. It builds on understandings of major sport events, such as the Olympic Games, as important aspects of a media domain where geopolitical issues are played out. The Olympic Games are characterized by competing narratives between the Olympic movement, media institutions, politicians and the public. Examples from the Vancouver alternative media scene are cited, combined with ethnographic stories from Vancouver 2010 and analysis of the online platforms from several case study communities working as self-defined alternative media collectives during Games time. Together, this data provides a preliminary theoretical assessment of alternative media in the context of media events.
The study focuses on two major dimensions of the alternative media and major events phenomena. Firstly, it explores how selected case communities identify themselves and recognise each other. Second, it assesses the opportunities arising through participation with the community.
The study findings demonstrate that questions remain about whether a meaningful transference of media power is actually occurring within the Olympic Games infrastructure, despite an increase in the prevalence of alternative media responses. Indeed, it is unclear whether new communities of “citizen reporters” who are beginning to occupy the privileged position that accredited Olympic media has previously enjoyed are genuinely an expression of transformative media culture. The findings suggest that citizen journalists may use a range of different (and often conflicting) methods of reporting and of political interest, making the accountability of their activities difficult to assess. In a space where justice and media equality are dominant themes, it is important to reflect on the consequences of those who act on the periphery of a media event such as the Olympics and consider their responsibility as reporters within a widening digital media landscape, rather than reaffirming the existing status quo.

This dissertation argues that players of the online game EVE Online in China construct EVE as an ethical world through the cultivation of their relationships with other players, drawing on Chinese tradition and Chinese modernity in their concern for their selves. I describe how Chinese players of EVE construct an alternative modernity through their play of the game, drawing on both tradition and modern concerns; Chinese players play conservatively in EVE because avoiding risk and saving money are cultural values emerging from traditional duties to the family and China’s modern economic situation. I argue that an anthropology of ethics helps to explain how EVE players make use of both traditional and modern virtues without becoming victim to a hegemony of either tradition or modernity. Players act in freedom to subjectify themselves to the project of playing EVE in China. I develop a new foundation for an anthropology of ethics from Confucian ethics, which is based on cultivation of a relationally-formed self. I examine three different relationships in EVE. First I consider how leaders cultivate relationships with their alliance members; good leaders are able to both build strong relationships and compel non-compliant players to work for the good of the group. Then, I look at the relationship players have with strangers. The lack of an ethical relationship with an individual stranger allows ruthless play in EVE, but the relationship between the player and the imagined community of EVE players places some limits on this kind of play. Finally, I discuss the relationship players have with the developers of the game. Developers have a responsibility to build code that supports the ethical world of EVE; violations of this world through real-money transactions and the use of automated scripts are seen as threats by many players not because they believe that EVE is or should be a transcendentally separated world, but because they believe these practices threaten the project of EVE.