digc102: ethnography guest lecture
DESCRIPTION
Guest lecture on ethnography, participant observation, and the issues of using these methods in digital research.TRANSCRIPT
ETHNOGRAPHY &
PARTICIPANT OBSERVATION Katie Freund
LECTURE OUTLINE
Introduction and history
Types of methods
Digital ethnography
Role of subjectivity and objectivity
The researcher and the participants
Ethical concerns
AN ETHNOGRAPHY OF VIDDING
WHAT IS ETHNOGRAPHY?
Ethnos – “people, folk”; graphein – “writing”
Staple method of anthropology
Also used in sociology, media studies, cultural studies
Analysing cultures, societies, communities using
a variety of methods
Namely, participant observation
HISTORY
Ancient accounts of other cultures
Herodotus, Marco Polo
Colonial period and “armchair anthropologists”
Edward Tylor, James Frazer
Participant observation (late 19th/early 20th)
Bronislaw Malinowski, Franz Boas
“Crisis of anthropology” (Writing Culture, 1986)
George Marcus, James Clifford
Postmodern anthropology and new issues
Feminism, globalisation, post-colonialism, LGBT
PARTICIPANT OBSERVATION
Inherent oxymoron
Learn by doing
Critical observation of
everyday practices
Describing cultures in
their own terms
How people talk about
their experiences and
practices
OR IN MY CASE…
SH
OT
S F
RO
M “
TH
E F
IEL
D”
An impromptu
group interview in
Toronto, Canada
at an anime
convention
ETHNOGRAPHIC METHODS
Mostly qualitative
Participant observation
Observing and making notes on events, speech, clothing,
behaviour
Participating in events and recording personal reactions
and thoughts
Supplemented by interviews, focus groups,
conversation/discourse analysis, spatial analysis
(passive observation)
Some quantitative
Questionnaires, surveys, demographic information,
frequency
ETHNOGRAPHIC METHODS
Full immersion in a foreign culture for several
years in the style of traditional anthropology
e.g.: Maggi, “Our Women are Free” (2001)
Studying part-time urban or contemporary
communities or subcultures, where the
participants are involved only at specific times
e.g.: Hodkinson, “Goth” (2002)
Use of some ethnographic methods (media &
cultural studies)
e.g.: Ang, “Watching Dallas” (1982)
DIGITAL ETHNOGRAPHY
Key questions:
How do the users of the Internet understand it?
How does it work as a form of communication?
How does the Internet affect social relationships in
time and space?
How is it different to “real life” (RL)?
What are the implications for authority and
authenticity?
What are the implications for identity?
Is the ‘virtual’ experienced as different from the real?
What are the boundaries between online and offline?
From Hine, “Virtual Ethnography.” (2000, p. 8)
THE ONLINE FIELDSITE
Vidding community homepage, 18/04/10
THE RESEARCHER
AM I A VIDDER TOO?
SUBJECTIVITY, OBJECTIVITY
“Only by establishing long-term relationships based on trust can one begin to ask provocative personal questions, and expect thoughtful, serious answers. Ethnographers usually live in the communities they study, and they establish long-term, organic relationships with the people they write about. In other words, in order to collect ‘accurate data’, ethnographers violate the canons of positivist research; we become intimately involved with the people we study.”
– Phillipe Bourgois, 2003, 13
CREATING RELATIONSHIPS
“When I first saw on LJ that a researcher was going to be attending, I was really quite nervous. Once I met you in person and realized you were one of us, I was so relieved. I was glad that you would ‘get it’ because you were already a fan, but just a fan who happened to be doing research as well.” Research participant: UK
SUBJECTIVITY, OBJECTIVITY
“Ethnographers are more and more like the Cree hunter who (the story goes) came to Montreal to testify in court concerning the fate of his hunting lands... He would describe his way of life. But when administered the oath he hesitated: I’m not sure I can tell the truth...I can only tell what I know.”
- James Clifford, 1986, 8
THE ROLE OF THE RESEARCHER
Reflexivity Age/gender/race of researcher in relation to
participants
Auto-ethnography
Cultural relativism
The concept that cultures are never “good” or “bad”, but have their own internal logic and should not be judged by personal standards
Ethnocentrism
The belief that one’s own culture is superior
Commonly naturalized, difficult to avoid
ETHICAL CONCERNS
KEY PROBLEMS WITH ONLINE RESEARCH
Ethics committees not up-to-date with online
methods
Prevalence of anonymity
Authenticity of participants
Collecting consent online
Differing standards of public versus private
Maintaining confidentiality of the participants
CONSENT
Collecting informed consent online
Consent without consideration:
MUD study with unforeseen negative effects from
consent (Reid 1996)
Consent from site owner, but not individuals
Ability to “lurk” (passive observation)
Different from requesting interviews or
questionnaires
PUBLIC PRIVATE AS A CONTINUUM
Public Open to all
E.g.: Comments on an
online news article
Semi-Public Requires registration
but then is available to all
E.g.: Online discussion
forum for a band
Semi-Private Requires registration
AND membership in organization,
E.g.: Company intranet
Private Private environment,
only access for owner and invited guests
E.g.: Closed mailing list for Arts postgrads
Public Private
CONFIDENTIALITY
Researcher has duty to protect participants from
any potential harm
Searchability of internet allows quotes with
author’s name removed to be discovered
Must be sensitive to workings of the community
FIE
LD
WO
RK
RE
ST
RIC
TIO
NS
Vividcon
Chicago, IL
BLOG QUESTION:
How useful or valuable is it to
apply traditional anthropology
methods like participant
observation to online
communities?
SUGGESTED READING
General Reading:
Baym, Nancy K., and Annette N. Markham, eds. Internet Inquiry: Conversations About Method. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2009. 001.4/55
Hine, Christine. Virtual Ethnography. London: Sage Publications, 2000.
Hine, Christine, ed. Virtual Methods: Issues in Social Science Research on the Internet. Oxford & New York: Berg, 2005.
Coffey, Amanda. The Ethnographic Self: Fieldwork and the Representation of Identity. London: Sage, 1999.
Some cool case studies / digital ethnographies:
Boellstorff, Tom. Coming of Age in Second Life: An Anthropologist Explores the Virtually Human. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008.
Kendall, Lori. Hanging out in the Virtual Pub: Masculinities and Relationships Online. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2002.
Taylor, T. L. Play Between Worlds: Exploring Online Game Culture. Cambridge & London: MIT Press, 2006.
Bury, Rhiannon. Cyberspaces of Their Own: Female Fandoms Online. Digital Formations. Ed. Steve Jones. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 2005.
REFERENCE LIST
Ang, Ien. Watching Dallas: Soap Opera and the Melodramatic Imagination.
London: Routledge, 1982.
Bourgois, Phillipe. In Search of Respect: Selling Crack in El Barrio.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003
Clifford, James, and George E. Marcus, eds. Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986.
Hine, Christine. Virtual Ethnography. London: Sage, 2000.
Hodkinson, Paul. Goth: Identity, Style and Subculture. Oxford: Berg, 2002.
Kondo, Dorinne. Crafting Selves: Power, Gender and Discourses of Identity
in a Japanese Workplace. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990.
Maggi, Wynne. Our Women are Free: Gender and Ethnicity in the
Hindukush. University of Michigan Press, 2001.
Reid, Elizabeth. "Informed Consent in the Study of on-Line Communities: A
Reflection on the Effects of Computer-Mediated Social Research." The
Information Society 12.2 (1996): 169-74.
Sveningsson Elm, Malin. “How do various notions of privacy influence
decisions in qualitative internet research?” in Markham and Baym, eds.
Internet Inquiry: Conversations about Method. Thousand Oaks: Sage, 2009,
p. 69-87.