- Convenors:
-
Catherine O'Brien
(University of Oxford)
Laura Bergin (The University of Oxford)
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- Format:
- Panel
- Sessions:
- Tuesday 7 March, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
Digital ethnographic methods have become increasingly pervasive during the pandemic. This panel seeks to question whether this trend will continue, weigh the benefits of in-person, digital, and hybrid research, and question the future of anthropological research.
Long Abstract:
There has been a long legacy of anthropologists undertaking lengthy physically-situated fieldwork. However, the pandemic wrought an increased necessity and demand for digital ethnography. This approach afforded access while physical research was not possible and increased awareness of the abundance of social and material interactions in online and hybrid spaces, contributing to the literature in digital anthropology.
This panel seeks to question whether ethnography can ever be conducted in purely digital or terrestrial ways given the increasingly hybrid lives we and our participants lead. What social, phenomenological, or sensory access is lost or gained through limiting research methods to solely in-person or digital ethnography?
Does digital or hybrid ethnography offer any solutions to issues of accessibility or promote inclusivity by enabling researchers to conduct research at a distance without having to spend extended periods of time away from dependents and support networks?
In a post-pandemic world, is solely digital research a legitimate form of anthropology, or does it stray too far from the legacies of the ethnographic tradition?
As a result of the pandemic, many anthropologists have become well versed in digital methods or have been trained solely using digital means. As the world re-opens and the possibilities for in-person ethnography expand, will the prevalence of digital ethnography continue to prosper? For early career academics and doctoral students who have undergone significant training and exposure to these methods, will this focus remain as their careers progress?
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Tuesday 7 March, 2023, -Paper short abstract:
This paper discusses conducting interviews via Microsoft Teams in my research with potters in Britain during the Covid-19 pandemic. I explore the idea of phenomenological access and what is lost (and gained) by not physically ‘being-there’ with participants.
Paper long abstract:
This paper discusses my experience of conducting digital video interviews with participants during my research into the development of pottery skill and its affective impact in Covid-19 Britain. Following Boellstorf’s (2020) contention that during the pandemic we experienced physical, rather than social, distancing, I argue that while I was able to interact with my participants in similar ways to as if we were seated in a terrestrial interview, what was lost was physical access to their surroundings. I sit at my desk, I see my participant mediated by the screen, I cannot experience the studio in which they are sitting. I cannot see the rest of the room around the camera, feel the temperature, or browse the pots on the work surface. In this way, certain experiential and sensory elements of sharing space during fieldwork are lost through digital mediation. While some participants offered me tours of their studios, pointing out pieces, materials, and tools, I struggled to get a coherent sense of the spaces in which they were working. I emphasise how in not ‘being-there’, I was unable to get a sense of their learning environments first-hand. However, in the context of my research, this limitation was also fruitful as it informed my explorations of how potters engaged with digital learning resources and the limits of video technologies that they experienced in their teaching and learning. This speaks to more significant questions about the phenomenological access of video, as both a learning resource and a methodological tool.
Paper short abstract:
Using autoethnographic methods to challenge anthropology’s priority of in-person research, I argue that interview-led research in online remote settings can be phenomenologically conducive, can re-evaluate our meaning of ‘presence’, and can extend the research ‘field’ of anthropology.
Paper long abstract:
In a similar vein to anthropology’s focus on participant observation as the gold standard of research, phenomenological methods commonly presuppose entering the research field in-person, forming intersubjective relations with participants, and becoming immersed in a new means of experiencing the world. Remote methods of fieldwork were not what I was trained to believe ‘good’ anthropology or phenomenology would entail. In this paper, I reflect on my experience of conducting remote ethnographic research due to the Covid-19 pandemic. As I remained seated in my chair conducting online video interviews at home, I was constantly haunted by the ghost of ‘armchair anthropology’, concerned about relying too heavily on transcripts, and aware that I was unable to gauge certain dynamics beyond the flatness of my computer screen. However, reflecting on one interview in particular, in which I had a very visceral reaction to their experience of several contraceptive IUD insertions and began to feel faint, I started to re-evaluate the phenomenological capabilities of online and remote research. In this moment, my body and perception of the world was completely reliant on my screen and my participant; a 'fleshly’ participation, a wholly engaged listening and intersubjective connectivity. My experiences were remote and digitally situated, yet were physically present and manifest. Using autoethnographic methods to challenge anthropology’s, and my own, priority of in-person methods, I argue that interview-led research in an online remote setting is conducive to phenomenological possibilities, can re-evaluate our meaning of ‘presence’ and extend the boundaries of the research ‘field’ of anthropology.
Paper short abstract:
This paper discusses the merits of hybrid ethnography in relation to the study of face masks within the context of COVID-19. I argue that these methods allow for the examination of phenomena not bounded by space, but rather by events occurring across communities at a specific time in history.
Paper long abstract:
This paper examines the use of hybrid ethnography within my research surrounding the face mask in the context of COVID-19. Much of my research has entailed conducting digital fieldwork on social networking sites, primarily Instagram, as well as digital video interviews with participants. These methods were supplemented with in-person interviews, filming, and a series of workshops conducted in the UK. I argue that for my research, a hybrid approach to ethnography was a necessity rather than a choice, as I examine a phenomenon not bounded by space, but rather by an event occurring across communities at a specific time in history.
Social networking sites have recently been the subject of anthropological fascination, with researchers debating their use as archives (Geismar 2016), expressions of morality (Miller 2017), and as new forms of connection with research participants (Bluteau 2019). However, the significance of these sites, both for participants and researchers, must be reassessed within the context of COVID-19 and the ‘post-pandemic’ world.
Related to my application of anthropological methods, I argue that Instagram was singular in its facilitation of image collection and analysis, participant observation, and interview procurement. Employing hybrid ethnographic methods allowed me to gain access to a non-geographically banded community of individuals experiencing the COVID-19 pandemic across the world over an extended period of time.