[Air-L] virtual ethnography

Rhiannon Bury rcbury at rogers.com
Mon Feb 2 14:08:57 PST 2009


Laetitia

I certainly don't mean to be elitist, just accurate. :)
There's nothing inherently wrong with "illustrative snippets": they are
the norm in the presentation of much sociological research, especially
when the sample is larger and some quantitative data is also presented. 

Ethnography is not "alternative" and non-normative by
definition. In recent years, it has become aligned with a larger
"post-positivist" approach to qualitative research in which the
researcher is meant to interrogate their role in the production of
knowledge. In my opinion, one should not be conducting virtual research
to escape methodological rigor and informing theoretical frameworks.  I
am  not saying that only cultural anthropologists should be conducting
virtual research (that would count me out!) or that researchers
previously unfamiliar with qualitative methods should not try their
hand at it in the "virtual field." But before doing so, they need to
familiar themselves with methodology and terminology



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