it is this experience he describes to us in "post-human anthropology", published 2009 in Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power. combining his past research on sexuality and violence in cultures of French Guiana and Brazil with the rapid trend towards creating identities and living our lives via cyberspace, whitehead delves into a world that has been difficult to tap in to as an anthropologist. the gothic realm of the industrial music scene encompasses both sexuality and violence sometimes in its rawest form. by adding the element of cyberspace whitehead is able to look at the role anonymity plays in allowing unknown identities to express otherwise culturally unacceptable behaviors. in order to tackle cyberspace, though, a new method must develop to account for the fact that the "subjects" of our "research" are no longer tangible objects that we can physically travel to and interact with like the good ol' days. this allows for a revolution in the way that we participate in and analyze all that takes place when creating an ethnography.
ksu's digital ethnography class is standing smack dab in the middle of this methodological creation with its project on anonymity (and everything that revolves around it and is intertwined within it, i mite add :P). as we continue forward with our "research" on anonymity we realize more and more how pervasive its concept is within our culture, there is no way around being an observant participant. taking this approach is not only a "good idea" it is a must if we are to discover anything worth sharing. how to go about it is definitely a collective effort but each individual student is going to take an approach that is appropriate for their personality and research topic of interest. as we all do this together and continue to keep an open dialogue about our "project" the dynamics will be fruitful. while searching for a model that provides a framework so general you can lay it down in any environment but still be able to create a unique structure on it, each of us will contribute new avenues to explore and knots that we will attempt to untangle.
in "looking backward, looking forward" david silver does exactly what the title says; he takes a look back into the recent past (i.e 1990's) in order to try and understand what is coming in the future. silver reviews the scholarly literature discussing cyberspace from three stages. the first stage, popular cyberculture, goes back to the early 90's when we have one of our first waves of computer rage. it starts as informaitonal text, though, and their are always conflicting views. some people saying the internet will distort reality while others talk up the opportunity for a new frotier to accomplish things that have never been done before; exactly what we see happening. whether it is distorting reality or forging new frotiers is what we are her to find out!
the second stage, cyberculture studies, focuses on virtual communities and online identities (hmmm...ring any bells ;). here we see the topic from neil whitehead's "post-human anthropology" popping up again: how do we deal with the fact that our "subjects" no longer exist in a physical space. cybertheorist allucquere rosanne stone (1991) defines cyber space as “incontrovertibly social space in which people still meet face-to-face, but under new definitions of both ‘meet’ and ‘face’”. this is ideal for our digitally ethnographic adventure relating to anonymity because we need to, as stone put it, work under new definitions. in addition to her proposal of redefining 'meet' and 'face' we also need to consider the meaning of 'identity' and 'anonymity'. working with these four concepts and realizing how and why they are reshaping themselves in response to a change in communication platform, we will get tremendous insite into how we operate as human beings and what it reveals about our wants/needs and what we do in order to fulfill them.
"we are not who you think we are!" with this statement neil whitehead cracks open a can of worms that has been lurking in the anthropological shadows for years. when you "study" your own kind, meaning the human race, you are faced with the dilemma of how to experience their experience when you already have an experience of your own. since the days of the great anthros bronislaw malinowski and franz boas, anthropologists have employed the method of participant observation. this "research method" allows the observer to gain a more intimate perspective amongst the situations/cultures he is interested in. neil whitehead takes this to the max with blood jewel, the goth band he creates to take participant observation and invert it so to speak. he believes that we have to "Otherwise, critical understanding of certain kinds of social and cultural features of a situation is simply beyond the reach of ethnographic methods."
it is this experience he describes to us in "post-human anthropology", published 2009 in Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power. combining his past research on sexuality and violence in cultures of French Guiana and Brazil with the rapid trend towards creating identities and living our lives via cyberspace, whitehead delves into a world that has been difficult to tap in to as an anthropologist. the gothic realm of the industrial music scene encompasses both sexuality and violence sometimes in its rawest form. by adding the element of cyberspace whitehead is able to look at the role anonymity plays in allowing unknown identities to express otherwise culturally unacceptable behaviors. in order to tackle cyberspace, though, a new method must develop to account for the fact that the "subjects" of our "research" are no longer tangible objects that we can physically travel to and interact with like the good ol' days. this allows for a revolution in the way that we participate in and analyze all that takes place when creating an ethnography.
ksu's digital ethnography class is standing smack dab in the middle of this methodological creation with its project on anonymity (and everything that revolves around it and is intertwined within it, i mite add :P). as we continue forward with our "research" on anonymity we realize more and more how pervasive its concept is within our culture, there is no way around being an observant participant. taking this approach is not only a "good idea" it is a must if we are to discover anything worth sharing. how to go about it is definitely a collective effort but each individual student is going to take an approach that is appropriate for their personality and research topic of interest. as we all do this together and continue to keep an open dialogue about our "project" the dynamics will be fruitful. while searching for a model that provides a framework so general you can lay it down in any environment but still be able to create a unique structure on it, each of us will contribute new avenues to explore and knots that we will attempt to untangle.
in "looking backward, looking forward" david silver does exactly what the title says; he takes a look back into the recent past (i.e 1990's) in order to try and understand what is coming in the future. silver reviews the scholarly literature discussing cyberspace from three stages. the first stage, popular cyberculture, goes back to the early 90's when we have one of our first waves of computer rage. it starts as informaitonal text, though, and their are always conflicting views. some people saying the internet will distort reality while others talk up the opportunity for a new frotier to accomplish things that have never been done before; exactly what we see happening. whether it is distorting reality or forging new frotiers is what we are her to find out!
the second stage, cyberculture studies, focuses on virtual communities and online identities (hmmm...ring any bells ;). here we see the topic from neil whitehead's "post-human anthropology" popping up again: how do we deal with the fact that our "subjects" no longer exist in a physical space. cybertheorist allucquere rosanne stone (1991) defines cyber space as “incontrovertibly social space in which people still meet face-to-face, but under new definitions of both ‘meet’ and ‘face’”. this is ideal for our digitally ethnographic adventure relating to anonymity because we need to, as stone put it, work under new definitions. in addition to her proposal of redefining 'meet' and 'face' we also need to consider the meaning of 'identity' and 'anonymity'. working with these four concepts and realizing how and why they are reshaping themselves in response to a change in communication platform, we will get tremendous insite into how we operate as human beings and what it reveals about our wants/needs and what we do in order to fulfill them.
Whenever we have a new development, in any realm, it is first born, then acted out (at least by some) and then viola…we have silver’s third stage, critical cyberculture studies. It takes a minute for things to catch on and get to the point where they are demanding enough recognition that people want to study them on an official basis. Silver sums up the complexity of critical cyberculture studies in four main points saying that critical cyberculture…
*explores the social, cultural and economic interactions which take place online
*unfolds and examines the stories we tell about such interaction
*analyzes a range of social, cultural, political and economic considerations which encourage, make possible and/or thwart individual and group access to such interactions
* assesses the deliberate accidental and alternative technological decision – and design processes which, when implemented, form the interface between the network and its users
these are important points, hence them being verbatim, because they exemplify the differentiation between the first two generations silver discusses and the third. in the first two generations silver points out that the main goal is to describe a realm we know as the internet. there are ideas beyond the virtual communities and online identities, though, and the third generation seeks to get at this by approaching the internet as a process that should be kept in context whenever participating/observing, or both, and thinking of it as something that actually gives us more concepts, usually even more complex, to think about and attempt to describe.
another key player in the digital ethnography class' adventure into the realm of anonymity. especially because we are each delving into something different we have to remember the context of the external and the internal. coming back to the idea that we need to treat this predisposition to complexity as part of "research project" not a problem to be solved.
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