Raktim Ray
(University College of London)
Arunima Ghoshal
(De Montfort University)
Format:
Panel
Streams:
Knowledge production
Technology & innovation
Sessions:
Wednesday 6 July, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Researching the post-pandemic city through digital ethnography.
Panel P22b at conference DSA2022: Just sustainable futures in an urbanising and mobile world.
The panel seeks to explore how (post)pandemic cities can be researched through digital ethnography. By doing so, it also addresses how digital ethnography is a complex entanglement of spatial scale, race and power relations.
Long Abstract:
The palimpsest of the urban world is increasingly marked by fragmented, evolving power geometries of digital technologies that are impacting the everyday lived experience of the city through the messiness of the web and data revolution. The inherent politics of digital technologies have been heightened by the pandemic as there is a surge of interest amongst various actors of the state, civil society, citizens, and industry to extract, produce, circulate and influence urban life through the digital realm(from embodied practices to policy implications). On one hand, digital technologies have opened up possibilities for new avenues of research through remote engagement which not only reconfigures spatial scales but also unsettles the normative discourse of ‘field’. On the other hand, digital technologies are also shaped by structural inequality and hegemonic power relations and hence provides a tool for “sustaining colonial amnesia” (Dar, 2020).
Acknowledging these contradictions, this panel focuses on the use of digital ethnography as a methodological and analytical tool. It recognizes the manifold ways that the digital has pervaded lived realities and shifting conceptions of self, community and culture and how it is important to understand the interpretive processes that are constituted by these technologies (Pink 2009; Postill & Pink 2012; Degen 2015; Kaur-Gill & Dutta 2017).
This panel invites debates and discussions about the theoretical and methodological challenge that is posited by digital ethnography. Does a rigid distinction exist between conventional and digital ethnography and does that reify an ill-placed dualism? Does it instead, lead to ethnographic places that can traverse online/offline contexts and are collaborative, participatory, open and public (Pink, 2009, Walker, 2010). It also raises the question of whether current digital ethnographic practices are being conceptualised/utilised to their full potential that allows it to encapsulate the social, physical and cultural systems of the urban digital space.
This panel aims at bringing together scholars, activists and artists who are operating with this understanding of digital methodological tools and to reflect on questions related to using digital ethnography in researching the (post)pandemic city. The panel also seeks to invite non-academic submissions from activists and artists which may include digital arts, photography or any audio-visual material as forms of submissions. The themes that this panel aims to address are:
• Positioning digital methodological tools in the context of access and inequalities of everyday practices
• Does digital ethnography provide a pathway to collaborative, democratic & participatory researching practices?
• What broader connections does this method make to gaining an in-depth understanding of multi-scalar politics of data-driven urban infrastructure and policymaking?
• How does race get addressed in digital ethnography?
• What are the ethical and practical considerations for using digital ethnography in understanding the everyday embodied experiences of the digital citizen?
Panellists need to upload pre-recorded presentation or creative contributions. Convenors would request the panel members to watch each other’s work in advance to the synchronous session. Based on the contributions from the panel members, the convenors will identify overarching themes which will be part of the discussion round. Each presenter will be given 6 minutes time to present their contributions which will be followed by 2 minutes discussion. The summary discussion round will take place after all the contributions in that panel and the convenors will start the round by pitching the previously identified overarching questions. At the end of the discussion round the floor will be open to the audience for further discussions on the contributions.
Cities are often portrayed as engines of economic growth, attracting domestic rural to urban migrants, international migrants and forcibly displaced people in search of jobs, livelihoods, protection, safety, new freedoms and wellbeing. Yet, a well-established body of literature on migration and migrant mobilities, and an emerging literature on urban displacement and urban wellbeing have significant blind spots in relation to space and place (Collins, 2011; Hondagneu-Sotelo, 2017; Sanyal, 2014). Some studies have focused on migrant placemaking, to show its contribution to urban transformations by spatially organising, building, attaching meaning, deriving feelings of wellbeing and belonging, re-generating identity and community (Gill, 2010; Wortham-Galvin, 2008), to innovate and reconfigure cities from within (Hall, 2015). Whereas this literature is cognizant of the importance of digital technology to instrumentally enable migration processes, it does not consider placemaking efforts in physical space in relation to its counterpart in digital spaces. In parallel, studies on migration and digital technology underline the importance of mobile phones, and the use of online platforms and social media for navigating journeys, exchanging information on uncertain passage and arrival cities (Gillespie et al., 2018; Peile and Híjar, 2016), yet no connections to physical placemaking are made. Accordingly, this presentation adopts a virtual ethnography to explore linkages between Latino migrants' placemaking activities in digital spaces and physical spaces in London. We argue that digital placemaking is an integral part of relational, multi-scalar placemaking, and generative of material, relational and subjective wellbeing outcomes.
This paper aims to discuss the following:
Explore some of the issues attached to digital ethnography.
Understand its limitations, especially in the case of developing communities.
Paper long abstract:
Ethnography is the study of people's behaviours and interactions through research and self-observation or piecing together the experiences of those living there to understand different cultures. Thus, digital ethnography is a great tool and has been proven to be very valuable supporting research in the time of pandemic enduring opportunities to collaborate and participate in research practices digitally.
Even so, digital ethnography can be exciting, on the other hand, it does require us to understand potential issues as well as limitations arising within its use or study. The aim of participating in this conference is to engage in an interesting discussion and debate to develop a better understanding, explore the potential as well challenges that come with digital ethnography in the context of developing communities by sharing some of my own experience with remote data collection as well as on-ground fieldwork in Karachi, Pakistan. It is influenced by many factors for instance acquisition of experience and skills within digital ethnography in the forms of knowledge that can be taught to students which is vital like programming languages, history, cryptography, infrastructure, applications and so on. Moreover, accessibility for informants as well as communities studied, developments in increased access to digital media with all ethical considerations that follow with increased skills understanding the challenges developing in connection with the classical anthropology to build upon. Further, matching the ground realities in terms of time and data, whether that's current and reliable and their impact on the outcomes and quality of research.
This paper critically examines the partnership of State social cash programmes with digital identity platforms for the disbursement of social cash post-pandemic. We critique on the use of digital ethnography that establish the findings.
Paper long abstract:
The Covid-19 pandemic has affected many vulnerable populations worldwide. In some countries, the crisis led to an instant State intervention, subjecting governments to rapidly mobilise their social cash resources to support marginalised poor citizens. While many State social cash schemes are known to leverage on digital identity platforms for the targeting and delivery of social cash, some may even use more sophisticated digital technologies, such as AI and analytics, to expand the scope of their beneficiary base. Such measures aim to build and foster more equitable and accessible networks between the State and citizens, but there is still discourse on how digital identity platforms may have excluded certain citizens from the social safety net leading to greater mistrust affecting State-Citizen relationships. The paper critically examines the case of the Ehsaas Emergency Cash Programme in Pakistan that was instantly deployed to protect most of the country's vulnerable citizens during the pandemic. There is much questioning whether such identity platforms have led to the greater marginalisation of poor populations leading to their social and financial exclusion. By adopting digital ethnography, we interpret the narratives from different actors in the field in understanding how digital identity platforms re-orient communities and reconstitute new forms of structures and relationships between the Citizen and the State. It is further argued how digital identity platforms reshape new forms of power dynamics that emerge between different institutional actors. This debate underpins the notion on how digital technologies may give rise to structural inequality that obstructs citizens inclusion in the digital social space.
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Arunima Ghoshal (De Montfort University)
Short Abstract:
The panel seeks to explore how (post)pandemic cities can be researched through digital ethnography. By doing so, it also addresses how digital ethnography is a complex entanglement of spatial scale, race and power relations.
Long Abstract:
The palimpsest of the urban world is increasingly marked by fragmented, evolving power geometries of digital technologies that are impacting the everyday lived experience of the city through the messiness of the web and data revolution. The inherent politics of digital technologies have been heightened by the pandemic as there is a surge of interest amongst various actors of the state, civil society, citizens, and industry to extract, produce, circulate and influence urban life through the digital realm(from embodied practices to policy implications). On one hand, digital technologies have opened up possibilities for new avenues of research through remote engagement which not only reconfigures spatial scales but also unsettles the normative discourse of ‘field’. On the other hand, digital technologies are also shaped by structural inequality and hegemonic power relations and hence provides a tool for “sustaining colonial amnesia” (Dar, 2020).
Acknowledging these contradictions, this panel focuses on the use of digital ethnography as a methodological and analytical tool. It recognizes the manifold ways that the digital has pervaded lived realities and shifting conceptions of self, community and culture and how it is important to understand the interpretive processes that are constituted by these technologies (Pink 2009; Postill & Pink 2012; Degen 2015; Kaur-Gill & Dutta 2017).
This panel invites debates and discussions about the theoretical and methodological challenge that is posited by digital ethnography. Does a rigid distinction exist between conventional and digital ethnography and does that reify an ill-placed dualism? Does it instead, lead to ethnographic places that can traverse online/offline contexts and are collaborative, participatory, open and public (Pink, 2009, Walker, 2010). It also raises the question of whether current digital ethnographic practices are being conceptualised/utilised to their full potential that allows it to encapsulate the social, physical and cultural systems of the urban digital space.
This panel aims at bringing together scholars, activists and artists who are operating with this understanding of digital methodological tools and to reflect on questions related to using digital ethnography in researching the (post)pandemic city. The panel also seeks to invite non-academic submissions from activists and artists which may include digital arts, photography or any audio-visual material as forms of submissions. The themes that this panel aims to address are:
• Positioning digital methodological tools in the context of access and inequalities of everyday practices
• Does digital ethnography provide a pathway to collaborative, democratic & participatory researching practices?
• What broader connections does this method make to gaining an in-depth understanding of multi-scalar politics of data-driven urban infrastructure and policymaking?
• How does race get addressed in digital ethnography?
• What are the ethical and practical considerations for using digital ethnography in understanding the everyday embodied experiences of the digital citizen?
Panellists need to upload pre-recorded presentation or creative contributions. Convenors would request the panel members to watch each other’s work in advance to the synchronous session. Based on the contributions from the panel members, the convenors will identify overarching themes which will be part of the discussion round. Each presenter will be given 6 minutes time to present their contributions which will be followed by 2 minutes discussion. The summary discussion round will take place after all the contributions in that panel and the convenors will start the round by pitching the previously identified overarching questions. At the end of the discussion round the floor will be open to the audience for further discussions on the contributions.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Wednesday 6 July, 2022, -