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- Convenors:
-
Yueran Tian
(Bielefeld University)
Jingjing Fu (Queen Mary University of London)
Send message to Convenors
- Discussants:
-
Tim Jordan
(University College London)
Monika Palmberger (University of Vienna)
- Formats:
- Panel
- Mode:
- Face-to-face
- Location:
- Facultat de Geografia i Història 404
- Sessions:
- Wednesday 24 July, -, -
Time zone: Europe/Madrid
Short Abstract:
This panel welcomes ethnographic and methodological contributions concerning digitalization and datafication. The aim is to learn from people’s engagements with rising technologies in the Global South.
Long Abstract:
Data-intensive logics and practices have become highly intertwined with many aspects of people's everyday lives, spanning healthcare, communication, digital activism, and more. In the Global South, the rapid expansion of telecommunication infrastructure, combined with the widespread availability of smartphones and AI tools, has significantly reshaped how people engage with public services, work, consumption and many more. Mobile apps for instance have expedited the implementation of welfare policies, extended access of payment solutions and financial services to previously marginalized communities. However, as more individuals embrace digital platforms, corporations and governments also employ algorithms to control, selectively include, or exclude individuals from this digital ecosystem. This raises concerns and sparks debates regarding equality, inclusion, and privacy.
The study of people's experiences thus is crucial as responses to these changes are highly contextual and dependent on individuals' material and affective conditions. Additionally, observing and uncovering ambiguities embedded in digitally mediated everyday life poses methodological challenges.
The point of departure for our panel is that datafication remains a highly interactive and relational process. Drawing insights from experiences in the Global South, we aim to reexamine and further explore:
The roles of digital technologies
How people interact with digitally mediated society
The evolving strategies and approaches that (digital) ethnographers employ in their "fieldwork"
The opportunities for interdisciplinary dialogues among scholars from sociology, information science and technology, communication, and media studies.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Wednesday 24 July, 2024, -Paper Short Abstract:
Drawing from experiences of researching digital feminisms on Weibo, this paper examines the promises and challenges of using digital ethnography to track contingent and dynamic social media events and study the emergence of networked feminist resistance in China.
Paper Abstract:
In this paper I draw from my own experiences of researching how Chinese young women engage in feminist discussions and practices on the Twitter-like microblogging site of Weibo to consider the promises of using digital ethnography to track contingent and dynamic social media events and study the emergence of networked feminist resistance. In the meantime, this paper aims to respond to the challenges facing digital media researchers who study culturally and politically sensitive topics and have to navigate techno-political contexts of surveillance, censorship and governance. It hence problematise the conception of the digital as a global, monolithic and stable terrain.
Entangled with my commitment to feminist epistemologies, the specific form of digital ethnography presented here seeks to reflect on research practices as affective and power-laden processes where researchers and participants develop connection and collaboration but also constantly encounter discomforts and anxieties. I propose to apply the notion of postdigital intimacies to understanding the complex research relationship in the post-digital settings of communication where binaries such as online/offline and public/private have been increasingly destabilised. I argue that the negotiation and contemplation of intimacies raises troubling questions about how (digital) ethnographers present themselves within and beyond these research ‘sites’ and generate meaningful discussion around inclusive and participatory potentials of employing digital ethnographic methods.
Paper Short Abstract:
This paper aims to analyze, through a hashtag network, the digital activism of an Indigenous organization from the Amazonia (COICA) in the context of COVID-19 to see how the use of social networks has evolved in this indigenous organization as a new form of political activism.
Paper Abstract:
This paper presents the results of a digital ethnography on the social networks of the Coordinator of Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon Basin (COICA) on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. For the results, I will present a hashtag network to analyze the digital activism carried out by this indigenous organization, specifically in three periods: October 2019 – February 2020 (pre-COVID-19), March 2020 – July 2020 (COVID-19), and July 2021 – November 2021 (post-COVID-19). I chose these three periods to see if and to what extent the COVID-19 pandemic affected the digital activism of this transnational indigenous organization. The findings show that as of March 2020, the publications in the different social networks increased, as well as online activities such as webinars, while this indigenous organization began to implement other tools for their digital activism, such as podcasts and digital magazines.
With this, I aim to discuss how Indigenous Peoples have been using different technologies, specifically the Internet, for new forms of political activism, seeking new ways for their voices to be heard.
Paper Short Abstract:
The paper, originating from an ethnography of a Brazilian residential block, discusses how digital technology shapes the daily lives of its inhabitants. On WhatsApp, residents foster bonds, manage public and private domains, discuss common goods, and mirror Brazil's micro-level political context.
Paper Abstract:
Residential blocks are complex ecosystems guided by norms and regulations to balance interests and sustain conviviality. This dynamic has been transformed by a digital dimension that exerts an impact on the infrastructure of the building and on sociability of residents, being used to fulfil a wide range of material, symbolic, and emotional needs. Through WhatsApp, residents trade and sell items, establish social bonds, provide emotional support, build trust and cohesion, care for those in need, facilitate communication, acquire information, participate in activism, and advocate for transparency in the property manager's actions. The platform is also used to engage residents and democratise discussions about their property and common goods, such as infrastructure, water, silence, safety, and privacy. This paper originates from an ethnography conducted in a residential block with 438 flats in Brasilia, Brazil's capital and bureaucratic hub. It is part of an ongoing PhD project that discusses how infrastructure, bureaucracy, and sociability are entangled by digital technology in the contemporary conceptualisation of residential blocks; and how digital technology becomes intertwined with the daily lives and routines of their inhabitants. The fieldwork relies on participant observation, interviews, and engagement in digital spaces. Through the interdisciplinary lenses of digital anthropology (Miller et al, 2021; Horst; Miller, 2012) and communication studies (Hall, 2016), the study highlights how digital interactions reconfigure the boundaries between streets, common areas of the block, and home interiors of the residents, and finally, how these interactions come to mirror the broader political dynamics of Brazil at a micro level.
Paper Short Abstract:
My paper analyzes the labor of rural migrants in the fast fashion e-commerce in Guangzhou, China. It presents ethnographic observations on internet “influencers” who sell low-cost clothing on social media.
Paper Abstract:
My paper analyzes the labor of rural migrants in the world of fast fashion e-commerce in Guangzhou, China. It presents preliminary ethnographic material on internet “influencers” who sell low-cost clothing on social media within the city’s wholesale markets, a practice known as “live broadcasting” or zhibo. Drawing on the concepts of fast fashion, this paper reflects on the material and embodied experiences of employment and labor as these migrant influencers create spectacles of consumerist urgency and desire through their scripts and performances; some that are impromptu and some that are rehearsed. I argue that the digital landscapes created by algorithms, despite their seemingly immaterial and ephemeral qualities, require the material and concrete aspects of bodily labor in order to properly function within the sphere of e-commerce. More specifically, the magical and spectral-like characteristics of the algorithm, much like the qualities of the fast fashion industry, require cultural work of bodily performance in order to exist at all. In effect, the work of zhibo compels us to revisit and to reassess our fundamental assumptions of labor, specifically waged and non-waged work, in light of the unprecedented rise of temporary work, migrant entrepreneurship, and e-commerce in urban China.
I take this case study as a point of departure to reflect on the intersection between performance, knowledge, and affect in the production of digital ethnography, which remains grounded in embodied
Paper Short Abstract:
This paper examines Yango's impact on labour regulation, work practices, employment relationships, and socio-economic disparities in platform access in the transportation sector.r.
Paper Abstract:
Cameroon's migration is predominantly from rural to urban areas due to economic and social factors. Internal migration has led to urbanization and the growth of the informal sector in Douala and Yaoundé, encompassing various occupations. Traditional yellow taxis have been the principal form of public transport, but the emergence of digital platforms, such as Yango, has transformed the urban transportation system since 2021. Yango, run by Yandex, allows users to book a trip by providing the destination address, with the cost calculated by the application's algorithms. This has created inequalities among taxi drivers and new employment dynamics, with the younger generation and the analogue generation joining the taxi business. Using an explanatory case study methodology, this paper examines the emergence of Yango and its impact on labour regulation within the transportation sector. It is framed within the theoretical perspectives of labour sociology and platform studies, offering insights into how digital platforms influence work practices and employment relationships in the taxi industry. Additionally, it explores the socio-economic disparities in platform access, such as age, ethnicity, and gender, and the resulting workplace and labour-related disputes that have emerged."
Paper Short Abstract:
The paper details ethnographic methods employed to study user-initiated economic practices on a Chinese coupon app, aiming to understand social interactions and relations in a commercial and private sphere. It addresses methodological challenges and explores ethical issues in Internet ethnography.
Paper Abstract:
The paper articulates the ethnographic approaches that I employed to study users' self-initiated economic practices on a Chinese coupon app and their associated private social networking accounts. The research object of my fieldwork is people's social interactions in an online context that is both commercial and private. The study aims to understand and interrogate the nature of those social interactions and their associated social relations. To pursue answers, the data I intended to capture needed to offer insights into the participants' use experiences, including, but not limited to, their perceptions, understandings, and affective motivations. Moreover, the study also intends to examine those experiences of social interactions in a broader social and cultural context. Therefore, to achieve such a research scope, digital ethnographic methods such as the walkthrough method, the 'media go-along' technique, and semi-structured interviews were employed.
This paper seeks to demonstrate the methodological challenges of conducting ethnographic research regarding user-initiated digital economic practices. Second, the paper draws on the literature on qualitative methods, particularly ethnographic approaches and qualitative interviews, and explains how each method can be applied to my research, its limitations and advantages. Finally, the paper addresses the ethical issues I encountered and reflects on them in the context of Internet ethnography in a hybrid sphere.