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- Convenors:
-
Evelina Liliequist
(Umeå University)
Katalin Vargha (HUN-REN Research Centre for the Humanities)
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- Chairs:
-
Evelina Liliequist
(Umeå University)
Katalin Vargha (HUN-REN Research Centre for the Humanities)
- Format:
- Panel
Short Abstract:
The panel addresses the methodological challenges of collecting and managing digital data, from planning to research implementation and subsequent data management. It aims to address the volatility of digital data, the positionality of the researcher, and several other ethical and technical issues.
Long Abstract:
This panel addresses the methodological challenges of collecting and managing digital data, covering the whole process from planning to implementing the research and managing the data afterwards. Besides the classical problems of finding the relevant data and efficient ways of collecting it, researchers need to adjust their methods to the affordances of the digital media; also be aware of the pitfalls including ethical and technical ones. The inherent ephemerality of digital data—its propensity to change, be rewritten, or disappear—demands heightened awareness and adaptability. Furthermore, the availability of data raises critical questions about the researcher’s own perspective, positionality, and modes of presence, also about how data may be perceived by the public. The panel, brought together by the DEF working group, aims to explore these multifaceted challenges as well as to discuss strategies for effectively navigating the evolving landscape of digital research.
Suggested examples of topics:
- Navigating ethical challenges of collecting, using and storing digital data;
- The implications and possibilities of AI and algorithms as part of the research process;
- Methodological challenges raised by the volatility of digital data, including the momentariness of interactions and events that the researcher wishes to capture;
- Strategies to deal with digital data (including data preservation, archiving and data loss management);
- Methodological insights from previous digital ethnographies as a guide to future digital landscape and the methodological challenges and opportunities that may come;
- Need for support systems (infrastructures, training, networks) for researchers to access and process laborious, multimodal data.
Accepted papers:
Session 1Paper Short Abstract:
This paper introduces a project which develops an AI-based automated tool for collecting, recording, transcribing and saving interviews of experiential narratives. We will discuss the benefits and challenges of the tool from an ethnological perspective. The project is connected to Research for JYU Mobile at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland.
Paper Abstract:
This paper introduces a subproject of a larger multidisciplinary project “The Finnish Digital Citizen Science Center” at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland. The larger project aims to develop AI-based, automated mobile applications for different research purposes, including the fields of 1) Natural sciences, 2) Health sciences, 3) Educational sciences and 4) Humanities and social sciences. We will introduce the humanities subproject which aims to develop an automated tool for qualitative interview that records, saves and transcribes narratives about nature experiences. The tool is based on two existing applications of Research for JYU Mobile: AI-based bird-watching app (see e.g. Nokelainen et al. 2024) and MyJYU AI transcription. We will ask what observing nature means to the participants and how does the digital tool affect observations and (sensory) experiences of nature.
An automated tool might produce a large dataset but it is unclear how the digital and mobile tool affect the quality of experiential data. In our presentation, we discuss the use of the tool as a part of an ethnological research process. How does the interaction and narration of nature experiences change when the dialogic partner in the interview is mobile technology instead of the physically and bodily present researcher? Can an AI-based tool provide something new and unpredictable for qualitative research and citizen science in arts and humanities?
References:
References Nokelainen, Ossi et al. 2024. ”A Mobile Application–Based Citizen Science Product to Compile Bird Observations”. Citizen Science: Theory and Practice 9 (1). https://doi.org/10.5334/cstp.710
Paper Short Abstract:
Despite their abundance, images found in social media or historical archives often lead to long paths to access or consent, hybrid heterogeneous datasets, laborious organizing and coding tasks, and ethical dilemmas to publishing. Akin to the topic of “unwriting”, this paper examines these research practices to invigorate the role of qualitative scholars’ “looking practices” in the age of AI
Paper Abstract:
This presentation is based on an ongoing study about the challenges social, historical, and cultural researchers face when working with the abundant but fragmented imagery of past and present. The material comes from a multi-researcher project (Late et.al. 2024, forthcoming) involving 21 in-depth interviews conducted in 2024, capturing scholars’ experiences with visual sources. Participants, mostly qualitative researchers, highlighted challenges such as complex pathways to finding data, laborious collection of diverse materials, personal organizing methods, and difficulties in publishing. Their often undocumented “practices of looking”—described by Sturken and Cartwright (2009) as active and purposeful acts of decoding and coding of meanings— reveal some obvious challenges but also less explored opportunities to participate in a fast-paced technological landscape.
There are known ethical and technological challenges that hinder researchers from fully embracing digital tools; such as GDPR, restricted access to social media platforms, limited contextual information about material, topped by a general feeling that AI technologies are still a “long way” to support their qualitative approach to research. Despite these obstacles, researchers have grown accustomed to abundance through refined apprising criteria, cumulative collecting and engaging in digitization, although systematic annotation and preservation strategies remain lacking. This reinforces a need for a broader, “bird’s-eye” perspective, which is more common in 'hard' digital humanities approaches.
As a way forward, I propose recognizing researchers' meaningful groups of images as valuable assets that can help develop infrastructures and AI applications that "learn" to alleviate the task of making sense of today’s visual and ever complex research landscape.
Paper Short Abstract:
The NordPoW project focuses on developing a GIS-based research infrastructure to examine religious culture in and across Sweden, Denmark, Finland, and Norway. The paper will address the "power play" between (for example): digital media affordances and research outcomes; digital accuracy and a messy reality; the aims of a research infrastructure versus a mere documentation project.
Paper Abstract:
This paper aims to explore the use of digital methods in studying (religious) culture - both locally and across the Nordic countries. The NordPoW project focuses on developing a GIS-based research infrastructure to examine religious culture in and across Sweden, Denmark, Finland, and Norway. While the map, which is based on the location, year of inauguration, and religious affiliation, of churches and prayer houses, appears precise due to the binary nature of data visualization, it is inherently reliant on estimations and approximations.
With thousands of data points, and some uncertainties in details, achieving 100% accuracy is neither feasible nor practical. However, grappling with these uncertainties offers valuable insights into the complex and often ambiguous realities of religious cultures - realities that disciplines such as Church History or Theology may sometimes oversimplify.
Given the map’s purpose of studying culture through broad religious patterns, these inaccuracies are not a significant issue. Nevertheless, challenges arise in public communication, particularly when discrepancies - such as placing a beloved prayer house 200 meters from its actual location - become evident.
This paper will specifically address the following “power plays”: To what extent do digital media affordances dictate the actual outcome of such a project? can churches and prayer houses, or not, be points of entry to the study of religious culture; what is the relation between estimations and accuracies when curating the data for the database; and, how to balance the aims and needs of a research infrastructure project versus a documentation project?
Paper Short Abstract:
Drawing on experiences from the RDC Qualiservice this talk addresses methodological and ethical challenges of archiving and sharing data from ethnographic fieldwork. We discuss best practices and strategies that ensure controlled access while balancing openness with ethical considerations.
Paper Abstract:
Research materials from ethnographic fieldwork—such as diaries, photographs, interview transcripts, and social media data—are inherently heterogeneous. Ethnographic data usually result from relational processes, they are context-sensitive and typically contain rich, detailed, sensitive, and often personal information. Collecting, using and storing data presents significant methodological and ethical challenges, and digitalization increases further issues regarding change, loss or data misuse.
Despite the growing emphasis on research data management (RDM) by funding bodies, which in the light of open science call for making digital research data and materials as openly accessible as possible, suitable infrastructures, support systems for researchers, and strategies for managing digital data tailored to the specific needs of individual disciplines, remain limited. Since 2019, the Specialized Information Service for Social and Cultural Anthropology (FID SKA) at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin has partnered with the Research Data Center (RDC) Qualiservice at the University of Bremen to establish an appropriate archiving environment and develop strategies for archiving and sharing ethnographic data in Germany.
What does it mean to provide access to ethnographic materials, and how can previously archived data be accessed and reused, and what implications and possibilities does data sharing hold for ethnographic research processes? In this report, we highlight best practices and strategies for preparing ethnographic materials for archiving and reuse, drawing on our experiences at Qualiservice. We propose approaches for making archived materials accessible under controlled conditions, balancing openness with ethical considerations.
Paper Short Abstract:
The walk-along method has been previously used in urban studies. Our “walk” occurred on social media. We followed the Be like Bill meme, gathering 46 unique items in total. The data allows insights into variation, usage and context of posting and sharing.
Paper Abstract:
The walk-along method (see Degen – Rose 2012) has been previously used in urban studies. The works of Michel de Certeau (1984) revealed the potential of walking in the city for discovering ‘secret terrains’ because pedestrians (or ‘the ordinary practitioners of the city’ as he calls them) have a different, less controlled experience of the city. Our “walk” in this study occurred in the digital space. The “place” that informs our study is a terrain for sharing cultural artefacts created by other internet users - social media. A researcher walking in the virtual space has to flexibly adjust to the time and place similarly to walking in the physical space; the observations and collected items reflect time, e.g. season of the year. Although not yet much used in meme research (however, see Luhtakallio – Meriluoto 2022), it is a promising method that takes into account the timeline and particular context of online phenomena.
We followed the meme Be like Bill across the years 2016-2024, gathering 46 unique items in total and giving an insight into the life cycle of this meme: variation, usage and contexts (time, space) of posting and sharing of the meme.
Paper Short Abstract:
Integrating the perspectives of digital ethnography and Critical Data Studies (CDS), we propose a concept for digital research ethics based on partiality, care, and the recognition of vulnerability, interdependence, and distributed responsibility.
Paper Abstract:
Digital fields confront us with a manifold of ethical challenges concerning the research process as well as representation and dissemination, not only because of ephemerality of digital data but also regarding fluidity and opacity of interests of research participants. To tackle these issues, I want to present a concept for digital research ethics developed by Paula Helm, Martina Klausner and me that integrates the perspectives of digital ethnography and Critical Data Studies (CDS). Examining the methodological and ethical debates in digital ethnography through the lens of Critical Data Studies and applying feminist ethics to digital research, we propose an approach that moves beyond individualized notions of ethics, situating normative considerations within the sociopolitical conditions in which they are to be realized. We advocate for an ethics grounded in both the researcher’s positionality, as emphasized in anthropology, and a critical awareness of digital infrastructures. Recognizing the conditions under which ethical subjects emerge, we propose a care ethics perspective that is rooted in vulnerability and interdependence and acknowledges the inherent uncertainty in fully accounting for our actions. We elaborate on the different notions and implications of partiality as an ethical prerequisite and a context-sensitive reinterpretation of the principle of “doing no harm” to develop an empirically saturated ethics on the micro level, which we understand to be enmeshed in larger political-economic conditions. In this context, we propose to expand digital research ethics as a process involving the concept of distributed responsibility of researchers, research participants, platform providers, user rights regulators, and algorithms.
Paper Short Abstract:
This presentation discusses the challenges and findings of netnography conducted in a Facebook group of a Hungarian metal-rock music festival, Fekete Zaj. The research focused on how identity is expressed and community is created in the online sphere after the temporary offline event.
Paper Abstract:
This presentation follows the process of netnography in an online Facebook group of festival participants in Hungary. In addition to offline research at the Fekete Zaj rock-metal music festival in August 2022, the researcher immersed herself in the everyday online activities of the group members of the online festival community between May 2022 and May 2024. The online research focused on the question of whether an event community and the identity of participants created and manifested at a temporary offline event can (re)emerge on a social media platform.
Being part of the online platform was helpful in conducting offline research, engaging with participants and organisers, keeping in touch and sharing research findings with members, and observing the types of activities group members engaged in before and after the event. The research faced the following challenges: positioning the researcher within the group, sharing the research findings with the members to get feedback, asking for permission to use personal online content and sorting the relevant data. However, despite the challenges, the netnography resulted in a rich immersion journal that sheds light on the presence of online community building and self-identity expression. The content analysis showed that the offline event community also appears on the online platform, creating community and self-identity, but the meanings of these elements are shifted in the online community.
Paper Short Abstract:
In this paper, I will provide an overview of the Latvian folk dance data, highlighting both the datasets available in Latvia and the less-known exile materials. This will shine a light on the data that is scattered across different parts of the world, often less organized, and potentially more difficult to access than locally held data.
Paper Abstract:
Latvian folk dance, which includes both folk dance and stage folk dance, is well documented in Latvia. Historical data collected before and during the Soviet occupation is available in the Archives of Latvian Folklore, as well as in the collections of other institutions, while contemporary data is available in the resources of the Latvian National Centre for Culture, etc. As a result of the Soviet occupation, many Latvians went into exile and settled in various diasporas, mostly in the USA, Canada, Western Europe and Australia, where they continued to develop Latvian culture, which existed alongside Soviet culture. In exile, dance groups not only preserved the dances they remembered from Latvia but also created new ones. Today, there are still strong dance groups in the diaspora that maintain these traditions. But where and how are the dances danced in exile documented? How and whether the folk dance environment in exile has been documented? What happens to this data? Since little has been said about the phenomenon of folk dance in exile, it would be important to focus on this milieu as well, in order to uncover another important data array to use for further research.
In this paper, I will provide an overview of the Latvian folk dance data, highlighting both the datasets available in Latvia and the less-known exile materials. This will shine a light on the data that is scattered across different parts of the world, often less organized, and potentially more difficult to access than locally held data.