Paper short abstract:

Conducting remote ethnography entails new considerations for ethical data collection and the use of secondary data sources. In this roundtable, I ask about participant observation, social media data analysis, and the ways online participation creates vulnerabilities in activist spaces.

Paper long abstract:

I wish to discuss some of the quandaries that have arisen during my long-term remote thesis research on Islamophobic policy, resistance, and health in the UK, from Texas, USA. Because the topic is sensitive and politicized, and some of the data sought relate to those who have been targeted by racist and harmful counter-terror policies, ethical and practical questions have entered into methodological considerations. For collecting sensitive data, should ethnographers shift focus to analysis of accessible testimonies via social media rather than seeking interlocutors for semi-structured interviews? What are the tradeoffs, and how does movement away from interviews toward secondary data analysis change the study? What does this tell us about how we value and hierarchize data sources? Additional quandaries to discuss include the dangers of persons entering "safe online spaces" where they are not welcome or intend to cause harm, and the ways to know when/if fieldwork is complete since one does not "leave" the field.