Reading response, ethnography in virtual worlds

So far the ethnography Coming of Age in Second Life is a pretty fascinating read. In particular, I liked how Boellstorff situated his research within the confines of the online world itself, and therefore aligned his point of view staunchly with the perspective of the users of Second Life. In contrast to previous, similar studies he mentions, Boellstorff explicitly made sure to avoid the usage of information regarding his subjects' real-world lives, whereas the previous studies examined online communities through the framework of the real world. By keeping virtual and real details separate and by using his study's subject as its own framework, Boellstorff was able to do a better-informed analysis of how users interacted and created environments and personal realities within Second Life, unadultereated by real-life details which may have influenced his interpretation; e.g. a singular male avatar could actually be controlled by a female user or even many users, but Boellstorff's study specifically focused on how that avatar interacted within Second Life, as a singular male.

The reading written by Hine touched upon broader concepts of research methodology and how they might be applied to an online environment, which is quite different from the physical locations visited by ethnographers historically. However, viewing the internet as ubiquitous and embedded messes with one's sense of place; therefore it is necessary to think of it as yet another field site. To explain how this is possible, Hine cites Amit and Cohen, positing that a field site does not necessarily have to be an actual place. What's important is how the boundaries are set; in this way a field site is more constructed by the researcher than found. In this way, we can construct a new kind of field site when anthropologically researching online environments: rather than studying people in a specific localized place, the online field site encompasses people that are connected together online. This network is what matters in internet anthropology; the actual location of the subjects is irrelevant, and the point of interest is how they connect relative to each other.