(De)Colonization of the Digital Environment: The Internet and New(er) Media as Places of Contemporary Anthropological  Research and How to Approach Them Ethnographically Cover Image

(Де)колонизација дигиталног окружења: интернет и нови(ји) медији као места савремених антрополошких истраживања и како им етнографски прићи
(De)Colonization of the Digital Environment: The Internet and New(er) Media as Places of Contemporary Anthropological Research and How to Approach Them Ethnographically

Author(s): Sonja Radivojević
Subject(s): Social Sciences, Education, Media studies, Cultural Anthropology / Ethnology
Published by: Етнографски институт САНУ
Keywords: digital environment; internet; new media; multi-sited ethnography; contemporary;

Summary/Abstract: The last decades of the twentieth century brought several twists and turns in anthropological practice and theory. New constellations of geo-political and social circumstances on a global scale have also reshaped the terrain landscapes traditionally visited by anthropologists of the classical epoch, exploring distant, other, and different cultures. Bringing anthropology home, by shifting the focus of interest from traditional to contemporary societies and cultures, has opened new terrains which can also be digital. Marked as places where meaningful human activities take place, with consequences and responses to them, we can move through digital environments, we can spend time wandering or exploring, talking, getting to know each other, loving and being, experiencing them as an integral part of our world. With that in mind, in this paper, I will present the development of the idea of places in the digital environment as the terrain of contemporary anthropological research. By defining key concepts and contextualizing them, I will seek to outline the landscape and features of the new(er) media universe, which the internet and social media are a part of, and which make up the digital environment. Then I will present the path of (de)colonizing the digital, reflected in its becoming a real anthropological terrain, which can be explored by multi-sited ethnography, and the settlement of the digital environment, i.e. by designating them a social space.

  • Issue Year: LXVIII/2020
  • Issue No: 2
  • Page Range: 419-438
  • Page Count: 20
  • Language: Serbian