[Air-L] Virtual Ethnography and CyberAnthropology

[Pearse Stokes]

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