Paper long abstract:

In recent years the debate of digital methods’ dangers, potentials and transformative effects has caught on like a wildfire across the social sciences and humanities. This talk first surveys some of the ways in which anthropologists have studied digitalization and engaged in using and developing digital research methods. We then present our case which consists of a description of the joint effort of building an ethnographic archive of everyday experiences with digitalization in Denmark during the Covid19 crisis. Data collection was carried out by a task force of research assistants and students over a 3-month period from March to June 2020. Including the project’s senior staff, the archive came into being as a result of more than 20 person’s collaborative effort. Documenting everyday digitalization during the pandemic generated reflections about bodies in ethnographic research practice, especially the role of digital versus analogue presence for establishing rapport. Except from studies in Second Life, digital methods have so far mostly been secondary to participant observation and interviews, and not considering central for establishing rapport. During the pandemic research participants and researchers alike were forced to learn to establish rapport through digital platforms. We discuss this in light of the literature and conclude that the Covid19 crisis has disturbed deep-seated notions in anthropology (e.g. rapport), and in ethnographic research practice (e.g. collaboration). The talk ends by teasing out some possible lessons learned for future anthropologies.