Paper short abstract:

This paper highlights contemporary entanglements of "the digital" with everyday practices, following the multi-sited research of computer game events. It discusses how we can apply innovative methods in ethnographic research, to follow uniquely composed situations in our field.

Paper long abstract:

Researching the everyday, we find our fields interwoven with digital and media practices in manifold ways. We need to reflect and adapt our methods accordingly, to create innovative ethnographic approaches to follow - often multi-sited - fields. This paper presents creative ways of researching "messy" fields and asks how we can represent research findings accordingly.

Researching large-scale computer game events and conventions in Europe, I will discuss the challenges and possibilities of ethnographic work in a field, that constitutes itself in conjunction with digital (gaming) practices. How can we tackle these collapsed distinctions between "online" and "offline" research? Like the field, my ethnographic research is not situated exclusively in- or outside "the digital" but is characterized by its interconnections. The ethnographic research, such as extended fieldwork and participant observation at gaming events in different European countries, also includes various means of digital ethnography. By combining different approaches in unique ways, we can follow the lines, knots and twirls unfolding between the various phenomena of the field. Gaming Events exemplify how (digitally) entangled aspects are embodied in local experiences. To communicate these findings, we need to search for equally creative ways of representation, to make these situated processes of the field visible. Gaming Events are a condensation of contemporary dynamics surrounding the entanglements of "the everyday" and "the digital" and invite to apply innovative methods for ethnographic research in the "in-between".