Virtual Ethnography Readings

Our readings this week examined how the virtual/online world interacts with the “actual” world, and the ethnographic concerns that are unique to studying such a culture. 

Tom Boellstorff, in his ethnography of Second Life, took a somewhat radical approach by studying that virtual world “in its own terms,” without attempting to verify or examine people’s actual identities, relationships, etc. For example, a single avatar, though it may be controlled by multiple people, was taken as a single individual because that’s consistent with how other users experienced it. I’m not entirely sure I understand Boellstorff justification for this. He says that while virtual and actual worlds are both real and draw largely upon each other, there is still a gap between them, which is I assume why he chose this self-contained methodology. His discussion of “virtual” and “techne” also reminded me of science fiction’s dilemma of what qualifies as technology. In a sense, all symbolic representation and even culture is virtual because it allows us to interface with objects that are not strictly physical. I think this will be important to keep in mind in our own ethnographies because it can be very tempting to conflate the offline with the “real.” 

Hine’s chapter touches upon many of the methodological topics that Boellstorff mentions, though the scope is more general and assumes more mobility and connection between online and offline worlds. Along with participant observation, interviews and other traditional ethnographic methods, Hine also mentions how social media analytics and similar data can contribute to virtual anthropology. This was an interesting point that I hadn’t previously thought about and it just adds to the myriad of additional considerations that the study of online culture seems to require. As thought-provoking as these theoretical, methodological discussions are, it seems to me like virtual anthropology, like all anthropology, can’t describe or take into account every aspect of the object of its study, and will need to accept certain limitations so as to create a useful ethnography. I would definitely like to see more example of how different researchers actually do these negotiations and compromises in practice.