Paper short abstract:

For researchers who live elsewhere than their field sites, being connected on social media with one's interlocutors creates ethical, political, and methodological advantages and challenges, and reconfigures the relationality, temporality, and affect of ethnography.

Paper long abstract:

I draw from my experiences as a Filipina based abroad who conducts ethnographic research on violence and peace-making in the Philippines to discuss how, on the one hand, being connected on social media with research interlocutors facilitates processes of informed consent, right to comment, data validation, organizing field work, data gathering, political activism, as well as the strengthening of bonds through easier and more continuous contact. But, on the other hand, it can pose risks to the anonymity of research participants and their and the researcher's security, and complicates the researcher's "impression management" that can impact one's relationships during fieldwork and even one's attitude towards one's research project. I end with reflections on how being "active now" on social media reconfigures the relationality, temporality, and affect of ethnography.