Paper short abstract:

The paper reveals how during the Covid-19 crisis, a participant observation has been transformed to a virtual one. It focuses upon the online transition of social and cultural activities of folklore dancing groups during the confinements in 2020 thus providing highly desired sense of a community.

Paper long abstract:

When doing a participant observation, a researcher becomes part of the life at the fieldwork itself and he/she is prepared for that both theoretically and mentally. It is that long-term ethnographic approach that can be scholar’s best friend or worst enemy, because a crisis can hit in an instance and threaten the entire process of monitoring and data gathering. The paper aims to reveal how during the Covid-19 crisis a participant observation has been transformed and taken into the virtual reality. It focuses upon the online transition of social and cultural activities of folklore dancing groups during the time of confinement in the Spring and Autumn of 2020. Despite the fact that online fieldwork, as well as online communication are both part of the academic and everyday life the study sheds light on the very transformation of strictly embodied practices (such as dance) into virtual experience. It provides the online dancers not with movement per se, but with a sense of community, as this is the folklore groups' primary social goal nowadays. Based in Bordeaux, France the author has been able to take part in a number of online events in Lyon, France and Barcelona, Spain thus managing to expand the ethnographic field turning the crisis into an opportunity.