[Air-L] Virtual Ethnography and CyberAnthropology

[Paul Emerson Teusner]

Hi Pearse and everyone,

Pearse, really interesting that you mentioned...

" If we take the cyborg to represent the meshing of human with
technological, then technologies, however rudimentary (the bicycle, the ball
point pen, the bow and arrow) perfectly and elegantly make us cyborgs. We
must conclude; that language, as a technology, as that key component of
/being/ a human being, places us all inside the cyber, regardless of how
wired in we are, how far off line or however long ago we existed. These
symbolic worlds where humanity exists reduces, or produces us to cyber."

...as there have been some discussions on my blog (teusner.org) about how we
theorise the cyborg and its basis for researching people online. Brenda
Brasher has done some work on thinking about cyborgs as a class of people
whose access to and interaction with and through technology separates them
from others in language, thought, values and maybe even economic status. Sue
Thomas has also written another theory of the cyborg as one who - rather
than looking at the Internet to see the world - is one whom the world sees
by looking at the Internet. (hope that makes sense). I also know that Heidi
Campbell and David Gunkle are presenting at the ICA conference on a panel
about human relations to technology and truth. It might be worth checking
out. 

paul emerson teusner

-----Original Message-----
From: air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org
[mailto:air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org] On Behalf Of Pearse Stokes
Sent: Thursday, 5 February 2009 10:21
To: air-l at listserv.aoir.org
Subject: Re: [Air-L] Virtual Ethnography and CyberAnthropology

Hi Everyone,

Good to see the discussion is still ongoing!

Mathias, you say:

"I have however problems with the notion of "performed purely in the 
virtual arena". There are so few purely virtual arenas, almost 
everything seems to be augmented virtuality, mixed realities or 
augmented reality as Philippe Kerremans and others call it. Where would 
you look for pure virtuality?"

You're 100% correct! In fact, I don't think there are ANY purely virtual 
spaces. As such, I don't 'do' virtual ethnography or even consider it a 
viable option for valid research. That's why I consider what I do 'cyber 
anthropology' but even that is problematic as Laetitia illuminates; 

"Does the cyber anthroppology assumes a "network" of interactions? Because
cybernetic models (issued from WW2 and Coldwar) are based on the figure of
networks.
If it assumes such organisation, then cyber-anthropology fails to reevalute
the distinction between virtual and real: The virtual as a field *born on
this metaphor*...I thought on the contrary( according to the title) that
cyber antropology would me much more emphasizing the distinction
virtual/real before reading your mail!"

Well I disagree with your notion of cybernetic systems. From "Soft Machines:
Ana and the Internet"

"Norbert Wiener's book, /Cybernetics or Control and Communication in the 
Animal and the Machine/. (Wiener 1965) introduces the term 
'Cybernetics'. It is the science or study of control or regulation 
mechanisms in human/machine systems, the interface between human and 
technological artefacts.

If we take the cyborg to represent the meshing of human with 
technological, then technologies, however rudimentary (the bicycle, the 
ball point pen, the bow and arrow) perfectly and elegantly make us 
cyborgs. We must conclude; that language, as a technology, as that key 
component of /being/ a human being, places us all inside the cyber, 
regardless of how wired in we are, how far off line or however long ago 
we existed. These symbolic worlds where humanity exists reduces, or 
produces us to cyber." (this of course raised further problematics like 
"what isn't cyber anthropology!?")

What this whole discussion should illustrate is that we all operate on 
assumptions about what we are researching, we may have assumed a 
'virtual space', assumed a 'boundary' to our 'virtually' ethnographic 
field site, assumed what 'cybernetic' means (based on Terminator films 
or other popular culture conceptions).

All in all, the point of this whole discussion, and any discussion 
regarding methods of research should be that the methods should be 
reflexive and reflect the needs of the research site, problem or goal. 
The problem with 'virtual ethnography' as a recent phenomena is that 
often the starting point is the method, rather than the research.

I'm really enjoying hearing what people have to say!!

Pearse



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