Transcript

[00:00] [AnthroPod theme music, All the Colors in the World by Podington Bear]

Alejandro Echeveria (AE) [00:00:21]: Hello, and welcome to AnthroPod, the podcast of the Society for Cultural Anthropology. I’m your host, Alejandro Echeverria. And today’s episode, “Playing Fieldwork,” is part of a new miniseries called “Rewiring the Field,” which explores how anthropologists are rethinking what fieldwork looks like when the field is no longer a place we travel to, but a space we log in to. Throughout this series, we ask a simple but important question. What does it mean to do ethnography when participation happens through posts, platforms, and algorithms? And where does the field end when it follows us into everyday life? Anthropologists have been actively participating in spaces for decades, from their initial research on virtual worlds and mobile phones to the ongoing discussion surrounding virtual ethnography. However, the digital landscape of today has been increasingly more mobile and increasingly difficult to distinguish from our traditional offline or real lives. Platforms like social media, online gaming, live streams, and messaging apps are not just tools of communication. They are cultural spaces shaped by visibility, access, and algorithms that influence who we encounter, what can we observe, and how relationships form. This series looks at how anthropologists are navigating these digital terrains as fieldsites, grappling with new methods, ethical boundaries, and forms of participation along the way.

In this first episode, we speak with anthropology graduate students Adrian Lugo and Gloria Marquez from Cal State, Long Beach. Through video games, streaming platforms, and online communities, they explore what does it mean to enter the field, build rapport, and conduct research in digital worlds.

[00:02:07] [Vaporwave 4th Dimension by Thrifter Records]

[00:02:27] Hello, Adrian. Hello, Gloria. Thank you for joining us today on AnthroPod. It’s a pleasure to have you here today.

Adrian Lugo (AL) [00:02:36]: Thanks for having us.

Gloria Marquez (GM) [00:02:38]: Thank you for having us.

AE [00:02:40]: I really want to start off our conversation by asking you a little bit about yourself. Can you share with us who you are and what do you do or what does your research look like for you guys?

AL [00:02:54]: My name is Adrian. I’m a graduate student at Cal State University, Long Beach, and my field of interest, aside from cultural anthropology, is digital anthropology or virtual ethnography. I’m currently working on a study about the video game Overwatch 2, and I did my fieldwork on Twitter with fans of the game and how they interact with and interpret and embody fandom through purchasing skins in-game. My interest is applying traditional anthropology and theory into a digital space, more like a medium rather than having the digital space be the subject—which is really cool, too, and I do that also sometimes. But I think that methodology needs a lot more people doing the work that feels traditional, that just happens to take place online because that’s where people exist also. I think overall, it’s largely ignored by a lot of anthropologists. That’s the work that I do and why I think it’s important to do more of. At least for my work with Overwatch, it’s me applying usual traditional methods that just happen to be online rather than not.

GM [00:04:25]: Hi, my name is Gloria. I am a grad student at Cal State, Long Beach. I’m majoring in anthropology as well. My primary focus, I do a lot of... it’s mostly cultural anthropology, but I primarily focus on digital work—so virtual ethnography, digital ethnography. I’m mostly looking into online communities interacting. Currently, my thesis is looking at... it’s looking at digital spaces in video game representation. I’m currently looking at how online communities interact and feel about representations and identity of video game characters, and also not just video game characters, but also video games’ representations, how they feel about representations and the authenticity of it. I do a lot of work in VR. That’s another thing that I have an interest in, creating virtual reality environments with my studies and my findings. I feel like it’s a great way to immerse readers and audiences and even participants that want to learn more. It brings them into that environment themselves and be with one of the participant’s life and experiences. A lot of my methods, like Adrian, I do a lot of virtual software, so primarily use Zoom or other softwares to do my interviews. And I still use traditional methods like surveys, interviews, and focus groups, but a lot of them tend to be more flexible where they’ll be online because a lot of the participants that I interact with, they’re distant.

So they’re either on the other side of the country or in a different state. So, yeah, that’s a lot of the work I do currently.

AE [00:06:23]: Before I begin into the nitty-gritty of these questions around virtual reality and digital ethnography, I want to ask you guys, how do you guys define digital ethnography or virtual ethnography? How does your approach to this topic influence your approach to research?

AL [00:06:44]: I think when I think of digital ethnography, I do think about it in two ways. I think about it as just a medium, but also a subject. So sometimes there are things that are specific to a digital space that you want to look at. If you’re looking at interactions on Reddit or Twitter or a video game in which people really immerse themselves, like VRChat. Gloria, you were mentioning VR right now. VRChat is just a socializing game, or like Roblox or Fortnite. Those are all video games, but also people hang out there, and then they have their own rules and culture in there. There’s etiquette that you have to follow. Just like any digital space, there’s information that you would share or not share. A lot of people online would usually not have a picture of themselves, and they have a random character that they like or something, which is different than in real life, or if you were to use Facebook, you usually have your own picture on there. There is... digital spaces do have their own rules and cultural context. But at the same time, I also think of those spaces as mediums to do traditional anthropology work.

[00:07:58] You can do a study about literally anything just because people exist online. So anthropologists should be where people exist. What I personally would like to see more of is people doing work that centers on just any subject from anthropology. It could be immigration or gender studies, or whatever it may be, that just happens to be taking place in an online, in a digital space, rather than the work being about, oh, this is about Reddit or this is about Twitter. I would like to see more people using digital ethnography as a medium to achieve those things rather than just like, oh, how do people talk on Twitter? But instead, just like, how are people just talking about the topic? And it happens to be on Twitter. You still have to address those certain things in the way that people behave and carry themselves in digital spaces, but it becomes secondary when you look at it that way, and then you can just focus on the thing that that you want to study primarily. I think in a way, it becomes more of a method rather than a subject.

GM [00:09:08]: Same as Adrian, a lot of it has to... for me, digital ethnography is very similar to physical sites and physical spaces. Just because these digital formats are happening in different platforms and their hubs and spaces where people navigate, there could be communities coming together. Like I mentioned, VR, Discord, Reddit, TikTok, even TikTok lives, Twitch lives. There’s just so different platforms where people connect through social media—and not just through social media, also game spaces. So video game playing. So if you have PlayStation, all those conversations could be happening in the voice chat. And a lot of these people that are gathering in these spaces are sharing stories or sharing their identity, or there’s a form of connection or building a community or a space where it’s not just a physical field space, it’s more as a massive digital extension. I like to picture it, when I think about digital ethnography, I like to think of it like neurons, if that makes sense. It just expands itself into many branches. I see it that way because you can connect with anyone in a different time, in a different state, country. And there’s language being conveyed in those spaces where people are connecting, not as a language barrier, but also through identity and a common interest of a topic or just a sense of belonging.

[00:10:45] And these communities are happening online, and they’re not just constricted in physical sites. And that’s what becomes even more cultural because those things are what’s making not this generation, but is what is happening now. As technology advances, we are seeing these connections and communities building in the background, and there’s a lot to learn more about. And I think as a cultural anthropologist, these hubs, it can help us understand even more how these communities are being created and connected and why they matter and how we should listen to people’s voices on these digital spaces, because I feel like there’s a lot to uncover through these stories.

AL [00:11:31]: I just want to add to what you were saying about—you’re talking about the digital space being like neurons and it’s mapped out because everything is interconnected. And Alejandro, you’re asking about our approach to research. Which for me personally—I don’t know how you feel about it, Gloria. It makes it a little bit harder, too, because it’s limitless. So you have to give yourself parameters on what you’re going to study and how you’re defining your thing, which is what every anthropologist does, but it’s less clear-cut as traditionally when you read ethnographies. But for us, it’s like there’s no reason we can’t do all of it because we’re just accessing a digital space. We have access to all of it, and it’s almost a little overwhelming with a choice of, okay, how do I decide exactly what I’m talking about? Because everything’s so connected, you are intentionally leaving some stuff out. You have to, I think, do a little bit of extra work in deciding what your study is going to be and what you’re going to cover and what is important and why. For me, I did my work primarily on Twitter, and I chose that because I thought that was the best space to have a conversation and see people interacting in the community, as opposed to Reddit or YouTube or Twitch streams, which all are also equally as valid because that’s where Overwatch fans exist and express their opinions and stuff like that.

[00:12:51] But I wanted a more traditional space in which people were just hanging out, talking and expressing that. The video game, Overwatch itself is not very good at producing a safe space and a general quiet, slow space to do that. It’s a very fast-paced game. You load in with random people, they’re talking shit all the time, and then you end the game after ten minutes and then everybody leaves and you let up with new players. So it’s not a very social space. So I got forced into doing Twitter specifically. But if I was doing the same study with a different approach, there’s no reason why I couldn’t include Reddit and Twitch streams and other digital spaces, or do a mixed methods thing and talk to people in real life also. So it makes it more difficult to decide, okay, this is what my study is. This is the limitations I’m giving myself—because you don’t have any, aside from being invited to a Discord server, a private Twitter, or something like that. But aside from that, it’s limitless, which is good, but also really overwhelming, I think.

GM [00:14:02]: Definitely. That is another aspect of when you’re focusing on digital spaces where you’re going to... it’s hard. Sometimes, for me, you want to focus on the whole pie. That’s the best way I can describe it. Personally with me, with my study, Adrian knows this as well, we’ve connected and talked about my study. It’s a bit overwhelming because my approach is, I am focusing on digital spaces, where I’m focusing on TikTok Live, Twitch or Reddit, or I’m looking where anyone is having a conversation about the study. If I’m finding someone that’s communicating like, Oh, I didn’t connect with this character. It wasn’t an accurate representation, that would be happening in Reddit. Then in TikTok, there’ll probably be a streaming live of someone playing the video game and connecting to the character and the player making some distinctions of connections to their identity to that character. And there’s so many conversations happening all at once where we can’t clone ourselves or we can’t talk about it. It’s limitless. And that’s what digital spaces are. They’re very limited. And it’s so hard sometimes because you want to do it all. But sometimes you have to narrow down your study.

[00:15:32] You have to narrow down where your hub is and where you’re focusing, because sometimes things can overlap, and then it becomes a whole PhD study. It could be a little bit overwhelming. Sometimes you have to hold yourself accountable as the researcher to make it smaller, but also let the participants that are there expressing their and talking about their personal experiences and intertwining. Maybe that can lead up to another study later on. But yeah, it’s completely limitless. That’s why I picked the neurons because it’s just like it branches out and it’s just a whole other pie.

AL [00:16:16]: When you were talking about the different spaces, the reason that it also makes it a little bit difficult is because each digital space and social media platform is having a different conversation because of the users, but also the way the infrastructure of each platform is different. When you go on Reddit, it’s more of a question-based and response thing. Hey, when is this game update coming out? Or, I don’t like this thing about this character, and people just respond to that thing in a list kinda thing. But then you’re on Twitter and there’s more casual conversation going on. People are sharing other things, fan art, whatever it may be. We’re talking about just methods and approaches to digital anthropology. Each platform has its own cultural context, not only because of the users decided how to use it, but the platform itself provides its own limitations also.

GM [00:17:10]: I think, just to jump back in. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, the infrastructure is very different in different... sorry. It’s very different in social media platforms, like how you say in Reddit—you’re having that conversation. It starts with a thread, a question, or an opinion, and inviting people in. And that’s how the beauty of it with every platform is it’s an invitation of conversation. So it’s happening in Twitter, now known as X, where someone can just write a post of how they’re feeling or what it is that they’re connecting with or just an opinion, and it just invites people in. And the same with Reddit, the same with YouTube or TikTok. You connect with people with what is presented to you, and that’s how you find your community—where it’s like, hey, this person thinks the same as me, or they have the same opinion of something. And there’s just so different things going on in different digital hubs. It’s not that it’s impossible, but it opens your eyes to how endless communication and connections are happening on digital spaces. But the methods... the platforms do tend to be very different. Depending on where you’re focusing on and collecting your data or interacting with your participants, the methods do tend to be very different, and you got to be very flexible around it and adapt.

[00:18:44] Vaporwave 4th Dimension by Thrifter Records

AE [00:18:55]: So you guys talked a little bit about your approach to research, a little bit about the tools and methods. Can you elaborate a little bit more on, how did you come to decide on what tools or methods you were going to utilize in doing your research?

AL [00:19:11]: Yeah, a little bit earlier, I mentioned how, for me, the game itself of Overwatch is not very conducive to having a social interaction, a calm conversation, as opposed to a different video game. Starting with that, I knew I had to do the work not in the game. I just looked through different social media to see what I thought would fit what I thought I was looking for because initially, I was just curious to see why people would decide to be in a virtual space with other fans. Just in general, that was my very broad general question of what compels people to just hang out with other people and share their interests and stuff like that. I’ve been a fan of the game before I started the research, and so I knew a little bit about where to look for people and see what conversations was happening. As we mentioned before, checking Reddit and Twitter and TikTok comments and Twitch and stuff like that, all these spaces in which fans exist. I would look through all of those, and then each one had something different about it that was very much guided by the platform that it was on.

If you’re on a Twitch stream, the conversation is mostly about the streamer and what’s going on on the stream or about the game itself. Then same thing with TikTok. If you’re on TikTok live, it’s about the stream. But I feel like TikTok compared to Twitch is a little bit more social and casual for whatever reason, which I think is interesting. Then again, Reddit. Reddit is more just a forum of, I’m going to post a question, people are going to reply to me. And so Twitter ultimately became the space that I thought I could get the most data out of, the more meaningful data, because I saw how people were posting on there and they were just making friends. They were posting about all kinds of different things. They were talking about fan art and fanfic and just sharing their thoughts and interacting with other people. It seemed more like a community that wanted to just experience community and friendship, rather than, as opposed to like, Reddit, where it was like, let me post about something and have people just respond to me about that one. So the approach that I did after that is I just made a Twitter account.

[00:21:34] I picked my favorite Overwatch character as my profile picture, and then I just started following people. I literally just searched for the hashtag, Overwatch hashtag, and then I was just seeing what tweets were getting a decent amount of likes, just a couple hundred. I just started following people. I started following accounts that posted news about the game. I just built my own community off that, just using hashtags and seeing who people were following and what people were talking about. I just went from there just slowly and truly building rapport with people, talking to people, building friendships, seeing what was important to people and interesting to people. But I think that’s also a benefit of digital anthropology, is that you just have access to any fieldsite you want very easily because there’s not really any boundary or gateway. You don’t have to be invited to Twitter. It’s public, so it’s out there. It exists. You can take screenshots, you can do whatever you want. The only moral gray area and ethical area comes from if there’s a private account, you probably cannot engage with that. If you are in a Discord that you have to be invited to, specifically, you can’t really engage with that or use that data.

So that’s a little bit of a limitation also. But overall, it’s like, you don’t have to find, oh, like when is the next Overwatch meeting so that I can attend and hopefully sit in? Or maybe I can find someone that’s going to tell me where to go to do this thing. I can just do it. All I have to do is log in and search for myself, and I can do it multi-platform. I can swap over to Reddit if I want to, or swap over to this other platform if I want to. So that really just gives you the freedom to just have access to that data immediately because there isn’t really any gatekeepers. Just particularly for my research—obviously, if I was doing another project where I wanted to get into somebody’s Discord of a group of ten people, that would be an entirely different approach. That would be an entirely different project overall. But because I’m just studying fans as they exist on Twitter, I didn’t really have any barriers for getting my fieldsite and talking to people or anything like that. So that’s generally my approach on setting up my research.

GM [00:23:58]: Personally, for me, when I started building my toolkit—and that’s a really good thing, because that’s something that when I started doing research as an anthropologist, that I have to be equipped with my own style of toolkit. And I was like, ooh, I get a toolkit—not a physical toolkit, but create your own toolkit that’s going to be your personal way of conducting your style or the way of things that you do your research and collecting data. And one thing for me, what it was, is for me, it was being part of those communities. So, actually interacting with the people, just like how Adrian was mentioning. So for my study, what I did was watch endless amounts of live streams. Just doomscroll is what they call it, I guess. But I would just scroll and research, research, research. Google search was my best friend, but also social media platforms like TikTok, Instagram, X, Reddit. Everything you can think of, I was in there. Where I interacted the most was TikTok. I was just scrolling on the algorithm of my page while looking up and searching video game characters. Then I would put the names of the characters or the name of the video game, and I would just watch videos like them, react, and the algorithm would pick that up.

[00:25:48] And then the live streams that would pop up on TikToks, I would actually join in and talk to the people and look at the people that were creating their own community. So a lot of the live streams that I was watching on Twitch, YouTube, and TikTok, a lot of them built Discord servers. So they’re already building viewers on their live stream. And then after those live streams, those people are congregating into another digital space where they’re having a deeper conversation. And they’re connecting with the person that is the owner of that page where they’re talking about video games, watching people play video games, talking about video game characters, criticizing the video game, criticizing the characters’ build, the character building. And they go into a deeper dive, where they go to this Discord server where it’s its own community space and hub where they’re having deeper conversations and a safe space where they can talk about their identity and their sexuality. And all of that is happening. I’ve been in other Discord servers actively as a video game player, but where you find actual LGBT Discord servers and video game, it’s a very good experience to see that there are people that are not just connecting through video games, but also through their identity and form of expression and connecting with other people.

[00:27:20] And that’s something that I was seeing, that they provide a safe space. A lot of the servers that I saw was, they would provide resource, listening to people, hearing their struggles. And a lot of people have not come out. So a lot of these people have these spaces as a safe haven for them, as a way of still being able to express themselves digitally while maybe in the physical they can’t. Or it could be very different where they’re both expressive. There’s different moralities. And that’s something that I did a lot, interacting and researching and a lot of participation as well. So talking, talking and watching streams and just researching a lot of the conversations that are happening and then seeing that even on those live streams, there are private conversations or even servers where they’re talking about the game and diving into more of the game and expressing also frustration about, like, I don’t like the color of her hair. Why did they do that? Or this season of this game was a cash grab. Or the representation wasn’t authentic. It’s just like, that’s the way that I did my methodology, and it’s helped me because I get to see the conversations happening.

[00:28:45] Also, what I noticed is very much the digital space is similar as physical, where when you’re the outsider, they treat you as the outsider. So you really have to become the insider or have someone that’s an insider to bring you into those spaces. So it’s a lot of building relationship with whoever you’re studying or whatever hub you’re interacting or potentially want to focus on. So a lot of it for me was building the relationships. I think that building the relationships and connecting with the community builds a sense of trust and also gives you a better understanding of the ethics around these spaces and how to... I mean, as your toolkit, it’s about being respectful and not just using your own self-perspective of things and being open-minded of other people’s perspective. And that’s what is helping you unravel and understand these communities that are happening—where you’re giving them the microphone to talk about their experiences and let you into their world and just their overall hub. But yeah, that’s my approach and my toolkit, really much building relationships, connecting, and talking and having those conversations and inviting them or even holding yourself out of that uncomfortable zone.

Because sometimes I do get a little bit overwhelmed or uncomfortable because I don’t know how to approach it, but sometimes it’s like, it’s all online. It’s just having fun and connecting. That’s mostly what it is for me in my toolkit. It’s mostly just have fun, be chill, and have conversations.

AL [00:30:28]: I just want to add real quick too, a practical sense on data collection and stuff like that. I use Zoom for interviews. I use Qualtrics for surveys. I use Nvivo for data analysis and stuff like that. I think a lot of people do that also, even if they’re not doing digital anthropology. Ever since the pandemic, everybody’s taking Zoom meetings now. When’s the last time an anthropologist brought out a paper survey for people? They send out links. The work that we do is very different, but also not really, because I think I’m using all the same tools and approaches that anyone else would use if they were doing their work in the actual world versus virtual world. I hope that it encourages people to also try to do digital ethnography, because I really want to advocate for the fact that digital spaces are just an additional human space, and anthropologists should be more interested in the digital space. To be quite honest, I don’t really think we’re using that many different tools amongst digital anthropologists and non-digital anthropologists. So just try it because if you’re already using Zoom, you’re already using Qualtrics, just try it.

GM [00:31:50]: I wanted to add that Zoom is an amazing tool. Personally, I use too many softwares, and that’s something that I wanted to expand on. Zoom is one great way to connect with people, but there’s different ways of connecting. There’s Discord voice chats. There’s even video cameras where you turn on and just have these conversations. There’s people that have movie nights. And book clubs are happening on Discord. There’s channels being created, threads, like, digital hubs, it’s limitless. Going back to it, it’s limitless, and there’s just so different ways. For me, primarily, I do use Zoom. I use Discord as a way to have conversations. If I do have interviews, I just jump in Discord and have a small conversation, make it very chill, conversational, and then transfer them into Zoom. Even when I’m creating little podcast interviews, I like to use Riverside. That’s another way as well. My surveys, usually Google forums or Quadrix. There’s different ways of doing your data collection, and there’s different things. I recently found out about, I don’t know what it’s called. It’s called Dovetail. That’s something that I’m exploring into where you can upload your Zoom recordings and transcripts, and it lines up your projects.

I’m currently looking into it, but that’s something that—I’m wanting to branch out to the common softwares. Zoom is a good way of still conducting your interviews and doing your focus groups. I just want to branch out to other software because I feel like there’s just so much digital work to do. I know there’s different digital softwares to use for data collection and also analysis. That is just so much to explore as a researcher. I’m still branching out into other, different methods that I can use for myself. But currently, it’s just surveys, Zoom, taking notes, scribbling, and summarizing and reviewing my notes. But yeah, that’s just the gist of it.

AL [00:34:16]: Can I just add real quick? When you’re doing your fieldwork on a digital space, you have to post and behave the way your participants are using that also, because then you will very clearly be, not necessarily not trusted, but they will know that you are an outsider, or that you’re moving differently. Different people might react differently to that. They might not care. Some people might actually be really not trusting of you, but you really do have to adapt and use the digital space the way that other people and your participants are using it. That’s, I think, different to something that is in the actual world because, let’s say you are in a small town and you’re staying with a family and you can do things like help them cook or look after kids or help them do whatever it may be and just existing, but you still, I think, are treated as a guest or someone that’s just there. In digital space, you don’t really have that option or that luxury because then they’re going to think you’re weird. If I made my Twitter account and I just lurk the whole time and I’m like, hey, do you want to do an interview?

That would be really weird. That would not fly. No one will talk to me. But when they look at me and I’ve been posting, I’ve been talking about my favorite character. Then they’re like, oh, this person uses the space the way that I do. And I think that’s something that, if you are interested in digital and virtual ethnography and you are thinking of doing your work long-term on a specific platform, you do have to, at least a little bit, behave the way your participants are going to behave so that you can build that trust.

[00:35:48] Vaporwave 4th Dimension by Thrifter Records

AE [00:36:00]: Have you encountered any challenges or tensions in doing fieldwork online or in virtual spaces?

AL [00:36:10]: Yeah, a lot. I will say my work is on Overwatch Twitter, so it’s just a loose collection of Overwatch fans that are on Twitter talking to each other, posting things. For the most part, everyone’s really nice and welcoming, and I think that’s part of the platform, but also the culture, because you are generally hanging out with people that like the same things that you like. There is this base assumption that you’re just friendly with people because, wait, this person likes what I like. We have something in common. But there are times where, and this is something that I experience personally as someone that hangs out there, but there’s been times where I follow someone and then they say something or post something and they’re getting canceled on Twitter, and someone will make a Google doc and be like, hey, this person said this about me or they treated me this way. Then they’re like, oh, unfollow that person. Just generally, not asking me in particular, but just like, oh, you should unfollow this person, or this person did this. Then the entire community is mad at them for a day. It’s something that I’ve thought of, do I stay following them as an impartial researcher, or do I unfollow them so that I can maintain my rapport with everyone else?

It’s such a difficult position to be in, because it’s happened a couple of times where I’m like, I don’t know what to do here because on one hand, I am a researcher and I should be able to just look at this impartially and just see what’s going on, how the community is unfolding on its own, really not interfering or anything. But at the same time, it’s like, what’s the damage that’s going to be caused to my own study and my own rapport that I’ve built with people if I continue to follow that person or interact with them? It didn’t really matter if it was someone I actually talked to or not, or if it was just someone that I passively followed. That’s the structure and the way that online spaces work, at least on Twitter, is like, you’re following that person, you’re approving of what that person said. That’s the assumption that exists. So you really have to think about those things: Wait, how am I being perceived and associated with that person if I continue to follow them or not? So that was one of the bigger challenges, I think.

GM [00:38:32]: There’s been a lot of things similar to Adrian. Funny enough, in my study, I’ve had interactions like that where someone said something in a Discord server or something didn’t align with the rules that are built on the community. It was very much of like, we’re banning them. We’re banning them from the server. Removing them. They can’t talk to anybody else or we’re unfriending them. And I’m just like, I mean, I have an interview with them for my study. I don’t say that, but I’m just thinking like, what’s the ethics around these digital... When you’re put in a tight bubble where you’re like, wait, they have some good input for my study. Why are we mad? Is the thing a big deal? Is it unavoidable? But sometimes you do want to be in their good graces and still be an insider, not the outsider, because you already feel as an outsider. You work really hard to be part of the community and you work so hard building a relationship and trust that you have to keep that relationship. And you don’t want to create a distance or a shift from it because then it changes the whole trajectory of your study and people participating or people answering your emails or getting back to you.

Another thing that I’ve run into is schedule conflicts. A lot of the times people have a lot going on inside of their life, from digital and the physical realm. I like to say realm. Some of them probably have a full-time job or they’re in school or they just don’t have the time. So a lot of it has to be with me as a researcher being flexible, having flexibility on the time zones, when I can see them, even if it’s a different time zone. Unfortunately, it’s seven in the morning, and that’s the time that they can meet. It’s going to be 4:00 a.m. for me. I can’t do anything about it. I have to be adaptable and understanding and find ways. I mean, I can ask, can we meet later? But then again, their conflict of time scheduling. I don’t know if they’re a parent or if they were a caretaker or if they have anything going on personally. So a lot of it, that’s some of the issues that I ran into—schedule conflicts and also being put in situations where another participant that I plan to interview and they did something to piss off someone else and I have to unfollow them or throw them to the abyss and never talk to them.

[00:41:32] I am put in a very tough situation. One of the things I like to do is let time pass and then be like, hey, would you guys be still comfortable if I still interview this person? It’s for my research. It’s not personal. It’s just connections and understanding better the community. Are you guys all right with that? I let time pass. If there isn’t enough time, then I would have to sit with it ethically. And as a researcher, you don’t want to lose your participants. So sometimes you have to, unfortunately, be like, okay, I will unfriend them. But it’s just hard sometimes. So I do understand where Adrian is coming from. But I think what is another thing is like, reminding also that you’re the researcher, too, because sometimes when you really interact in these communities, you start building friendships sometimes. So it’s not a bad thing building the friendships, but also reminding you that there is a distance where it’s like, I’m the researcher. I’m still doing a study and remain that professional relationship. I mean, I still would love to be friends with the people that I interact with and that are my participants, but I also don’t want to push into it and also avoid those situations.

I feel like sometimes reminding yourself, I’m just here for the research, but I would love to connect with you even more, past my research after if you’re comfortable. So having those dialogues and conversations of consent in a way, so they don’t just see you as that you’re just here for the study and running away. Because that’s another thing we don’t want to do, because we also want to build relationships. And also these relationships that we build can blossom into something in the future, invite more conversations with different studies or connecting with other people.

AL [00:43:42]: I think another obstacle of doing digital anthropology and being in a, specifically, social media platform is that you have to adapt to how people are interacting in that space and behave the way that they do. But at the same time, you want to stay impartial to things because you don’t want to prime people for a certain opinion. You don’t want to sway anything that’s going on. For me, in particular, I don’t know how that influenced my work and the way that people thought about me, when I would talk about something but not really give a strong opinion because I didn’t want to attract certain followers or attract certain opinions to me and my interactions—so that my feed, because we’re so beholden to the algorithm, so if I said an opinion on a specific character and then a bunch of people that don’t like that character follow me, and then I start seeing more of that, that’s going to sway what I think is going on in my fieldsite because all of a sudden I’m seeing more people that, let’s say, for example, hate the character Mercy. Then as a researcher, I’m like, oh, wait, do a lot of people hate Mercy, or is it just my algorithm because of the things that I said?

I really tried my best to limit how strong of an opinion I had on certain things, while at the same time trying to engage with that conversation, which is really tricky. I think that also set me aside as an outsider because I wasn’t as strongly passionate about certain things because I didn’t want to sway opinions or thoughts or move my algorithm too strongly in any way, which I think is really a challenge because you want to build rapport with people, but at the same time, you can’t sway your algorithm that much. It’s a really delicate thing to play with. I’m really curious to see people think of me as a researcher, at least in the beginning. I think now I’m more friends with people and it’s more casual. Then I also just wanted to add a separate thought. Another drawback, I think, from having access to your fieldsite at all times and to anybody at all times is, sometimes it’s hard to turn it off and just not log in and check and see what people are talking about, especially on Twitter. That’s so quick and active all the time. It’s really difficult to just leave it alone. Because traditional anthropologists, you go somewhere, you live there for however long it is, and then you leave and you have all your data, and it's done.

[00:46:07] But on Twitter, it’s never done. I can access it whenever I want to, and it’s really difficult sometimes to just be like, hey, I don’t have to check Twitter every day, or I don’t have to tweet every day or post every day. Now that I’ve done the bulk of my collection, I feel a little bit more chill overall with not checking every day and expressing my opinion a little bit more strongly now because I’ve collected the bulk of my data, even though I’m still checking in, and I’m still going to use it and add stuff to my thesis, but I generally have done the bulk of my data collection already, so I feel more comfortable with doing that. But it is a really delicate thing to interact with when you have access to it 24/7.

[00:46:45] Vaporwave 4th Dimension by Thrifter Records

AE [00:46:54]: What you just said right now, Adrian, it’s on my mind, especially in—when it comes to terms of how do you guys represent not only yourselves, but also the data and the narratives that we or the people we’re engaging with, how have you guys approached the representation of your research and the data? How has digital anthropology informed the dissemination or the representation of your work?

GM [00:47:23]: It is very traditional where you collect your... you do your methodology where you find your participants, you focus on your research questions of your study, and you interact with your participants where you’re collecting your data. So surveys, interviews, focus groups, participation. So really diving into the community. What it is for me, and it’s part of my toolkit, is I always emphasize, and I’ve mentioned it to other people, that collaboration. So I collaborate with my participants, because I’m not only doing a study of a marginalized community and minorities. These are people’s experiences and narratives and stories that I can’t mess up. I can’t construe the words of what they tell me. I have to give it justice and a voice for them to speak on their narratives. When I’m connecting to my participants, I’m also opening up to myself. I’m giving them a little bit of my story, my narrative, who I am, that representation, and why I connect to this study. With my study being about video games and representation about the community, I’m part of the community, not just by playing video games. I am an active video game player. I love video games, but also I’m being part of the LGBT community.

I also extend that hand where it’s like, I see you, I hear you. I’m part of the community, but let’s expand more what’s going on in our community and how we feel about these video games. Because I can have my own interpretations and opinions about a video game character, but those are my opinions. That’s my experience. As me as a researcher, I can’t let my opinions and my experiences of the connective of the character-building of a character speak for others. I have to allow other people’s experiences, whoever I’m talking to, no matter what my study is, it’s about collaboration, and that’s something that I emphasize with them. Something that I do is, since a lot of my work is digital, and a lot of my findings and the way I choose to present my findings are digital as well. I do podcasts, I do VR documentaries, I do little short films. So a lot of the ways that I decide to show my findings is very creative. It’s creativity. And the way that I extend the narrative of those people, of their representation, and representing my study as well, is I sit down with my participant, like, hey, you are helping me with my study, but let’s make it fun.

[00:50:26] What would you like me, what do you want me to create in this podcast? What do you want to touch on? What do you want to talk? What lighting do you want to do? It’s a lot about collaboration and letting them express themselves too freely. One thing that I’m always telling people is that I want to make anthropology very hands-on. It is hands-on, but to an extent. But I want to break those gaps where it could be very hands-on and very creative, where you are allowed to be expressive, whether that’s film, lighting, podcast, feathers, whatever you want to think of. Because I used to be a theater arts major. So that’s where the theatric part of me comes out, where I want to make it playful and creative. So that’s why I contribute a lot with my community, but also with the participants that I want to collab with them. It’s not them just giving me my findings and my data, I also want them to be like, hey, if we were to do a film interview, how would you want me to represent you? If I do just a 1-on-1 interview and the camera is just a boring white wall, like I want to see...

For me, it’s like, what do you want in the background? Do you want to film in your room? The room shows your personality. It shows who you are, deeper than just you being a video game player. It shows a story. It’s like a way of storytelling. Like, would you like some lighting? Would you like the lighting to be a form of your expression of your sexuality identity? Or like, how we call it, the bisexual lights. There’s that terminology that people throw around in the film industry, like the bisexual lights. But I want to do a lot of collaboration with the people. And a lot of it, when I’m presenting my findings, whether if it’s a documentary, I want it to be very immersive because it’s not just the readers or the audiences or the video game players in the VR documentaries. When they’re diving in, I want it to be immersed. I want them to be like, oh, wow. So this is this person’s experience and narrative, and I’m immersed in it, and it’s just not a reading a report. I mean, either way, as a researcher, we have to write the study and the report. But can expand it and make it more accessible to others where it’s visual or audio?

[00:53:05] There’s different ways of conveying that. I think when you participate with your participants, you create something more beautiful, in my opinion. That’s just my opinion. I think creativity and collaboration, letting them like, ooh, I would like this. If you can do this, or like, this would be a better representation of me. It builds better relationships that way, and you will dive into more findings. And I think even throwing yourself there and representing yourself and being welcoming, it makes you feel more comfortable vice versa with your participant and as a researcher, you feel more relaxed.

AL [00:53:48]: For me, I think it’s really interesting because I think every anthropologist that you interview and ask this question is going to give you something different, just because not only is every person’s approach to the work different, each fieldsite and subject is different. And even then, your approach to the site also makes everything so different. Everything Gloria was talking about, you could do a film, you could not do a film, you can make it just audio as a podcast, you could just do a regular thesis, you could do something with VR, and all of that is like, okay, but what are you focusing on? You were talking about your theater background. Is the bisexual lighting important for the project you’re doing? Is it not? There’s so many different approaches is to it. Something that I do for also making things collaborative is because I think I have a big task of explaining to people what Overwatch is as a video game and then explaining why skins in the game are important and then explaining, okay, this is what the thesis is about. This is about how people are interacting with it, what they think about it.

One of the things that I need to do is show, okay, here’s what a character normally looks like, and then here’s what a character looks like when you buy a skin, using screenshots. Something that I did recently was I asked people on Twitter through DMs and just tweeting it out, which base skins do you guys think are the most boring or which ones do you not like? Then people have opinions on it. They have strong opinions. They’re like, I don’t like the way this guy looks. I think this is really bland. This is that. They have strong opinions. So I’m incorporating what they’re saying and their opinions into what I’m showing so that I can show any reader who picks up my thesis and sees that, okay, this is what a base character looks like. Here’s what it looks like when people purchase a skin and an outfit for their character. But it’s also done with participation from my participants, because it’s like they are telling me what they think is the most boring. As a reader, you are looking at that and their opinions are reflected in what I’m talking about. That’s part of the collaborative aspect of it.

[00:56:02] Then there’s also just how much of the video game do I explain? How much do I explain about Twitter? How much do I explain about skins and stuff like that? How much do I give attention to each thing? Because it’s also, as someone who’s collected the data, I have to be like, okay, what is this thesis actually about? What do I focus on? Because I’ve collected my data, it’s there. Now I have to interpret it, I have to deal with it. How much do people who don’t know anything about Overwatch or video games in general need to know to understand why this is important? Like Gloria was saying, when we’re talking to people and asking them about these things, it’s really important to them. All of us here understand that everyone listening who’s an anthropologist understands how important the things that we’re asking them are to them. If they tell me that it’s really important that their favorite character doesn’t have a skin or a good quality skin, how do I, as an author, convey that to people who don’t even know what a skin is and don’t really play a video game? I’m expecting the majority of my readers to be people who haven’t played a video game in twenty years.

And they’re like, oh, I play Zelda sometimes, or Mario. And it’s like, this is an entirely different thing. You have no reference for this. So I think it’s really important to try to figure out how do I balance all these different things that I think are more difficult to balance as a digital anthropologist. How do I balance everything and make sure that, first and foremost, people who are reading really understand how important what I’m talking about is to the people that think it’s important? Because I think it’s really easy to brush off as like, oh, it’s just a video game, or it’s just that. It’s just somebody complaining about their favorite character, but it’s way deeper than that. That’s the thing that I really want to focus on, that I try to do collaborative as much as I can. Like I mentioned, I ask people, which character is boring to you? They’re like, yeah, this character, that character, but also really emphasizing, okay, here’s the video game, here’s the work, but here’s why it’s important. I think that’s a feature of any good ethnography, but particularly in digital spaces. How do I give you guys the background of the digital space and then also talk about what’s actually important? Because like I mentioned before, I have to introduce Overwatch as this really expensive big game that’s been around almost ten years, and then ask people to forget about it a little bit and just focus on the costumes and the characters and stuff like that.

[00:58:31] There’s a lot going on right there. But to answer your question more succinctly, my approach is, people think it’s really important, so it has to be really important to me. The creative approach that I take to the thesis is, how do I do my work that serves the participants in that way where I emphasize that skins are really important to them? Everything that I am doing, the way I structure my chapters and the theory that I’m using, the way that I present everything, I’m doing it very intentionally, to where people who are reading it are like, wait, I understand why it’s important that their character doesn’t get a skin, why it’s frustrating, why people might think that a character not getting a skin is transphobic or racist or all these other things that people are telling me. So that’s the most important thing, is just making sure that I convey how important that is to the people that are going to be reading it, and assuming that the people that are going to be reading it have no reference to online games, digital spaces, or any of that.

[00:59:34] Vaporwave 4th Dimension by Thrifter Records

AE [00:59:38]: Where do you see the future of digital anthropology going? And do you have any advice for any researcher interested in engaging in digital fieldwork or digital anthropology?

AL [00:59:51]: I use both “digital” and “virtual,” depending on what I’m talking about. I use them interchangeably. I like using “digital” because I think it’s more encompassing than “virtual” because I think when you use “virtual,” sometimes people think of a video game specifically, and some virtual immersive experience thing. I think “digital” is a little bit more broad when we’re talking about things, but I like to use both. But I think it’s hard to imagine what the future of digital anthropology is going to be like because there’s not a lot of people doing it. I think generally, anthropologists are uninterested in digital spaces for one reason or and other. It’s hard for me to imagine where that would go. I know there’s a lot of work being done more recently on just identity and stuff like that, which is also really interesting, understanding how our digital selves—what identity do we create as a digital self, compared to an actual real-life identity, and how that incorporates to your everyday? Because they’re not separate. They’re just an additional component to who who you are. As far as advice, I don’t know. Again, I really want to encourage more people to be interested in digital anthropology.

[01:01:12] I want to encourage people to get more curious about it because I think it’s really easy for people, especially older adults, to look at social media and virtual spaces and think that it’s fake and that who you are on there is not real or anything. At the same time, I think it’s really common to hear people complain about kids currently not playing outside or not hanging out with each other. They’re not going to the mall. There’s this whole conversation about the lack of third spaces and how everybody’s online all the time, and there’s that perception. I think that we can only complain about that so much before we just get in there and start exploring why they’re on there. Because kids aren’t just in their room by themselves playing a story mode game on their PlayStation all day, not interacting. They’re still interacting with people. It’s just shifted to be online. Everyone under the age of twenty-two is on Discord all the fucking time. Everybody’s on Discord always. This idea that your identity is somehow fake or people aren’t being social is not true. It’s just shifted. Our world has shifted, especially because of the pandemic, and people are online all the time, more than ever.

I think anthropologists, if we’re going to be good anthropologists, instead of just complaining about the world changing and kids don’t want to go outside anymore, it’s like, go to where they’re at. They still exist. They didn’t die off. They are not antisocial. They are existing on digital platforms in digital space. Like I said, we can shake our fist at that and complain about that only so much. But at some point, we’ve got to get in there and actually talk about and explore what people what they’re actually doing in these digital spaces because they’re still there. It’s, I think, really interesting because, like me and Gloria have said a lot during this interview, each digital space has its own rules and etiquettes and ways of behaving. It’s a really interesting mix of the structure of the platform and also how people choose to use that space. Because there’s a lot of, in traditional anthropology, like, structuralism versus cultural explanations for how people behave. Social platforms are a really solid mix of both. Like I mentioned before, Reddit, you post something and people respond like a list, a quorum. Twitter is way more casual, and you can have conversations on it.

[01:03:41] That’s partly because that’s how the structure of each website is. People are behaving on how the structure is. Then also people decide how to interact, what’s funny on each platform. I always understand that meme of like, oh, this is going to be funny. If you’re on TikTok, this is going to be on reels a week later, or something on Twitter is going to be on Facebook a week later. There’s all these ideas of what’s popular, what’s not, what’s a good thing to post, what’s being used, what social media is for old people, Facebook is for old people, and nobody uses Snapchat. There’s all these ideas, all this rich data and traditional approaches to anthropology that we’ve always used in the actual world that exist in the digital space. I want people to be more excited and more curious about that because, again, I mentioned earlier, anthropologists study humans, and there are humans in digital space. And so that’s where the anthropologists should be, because there are a lot of different approaches that you can use. And I also want to encourage people to think about digital methodology not just as a subject matter, but as a medium to get your work done.

And I think a lot more people are open to that, like, oh, let me just check TikTok or use Zoom and stuff like that as a tool thing. But I really want to encourage people to whatever ideas or things that they’re interested in, to really lean into the digital space, digital tools, and get that work done because I think it’s really important. People exist online in digital spaces. They’re there. They’re just waiting for you to approach. We need more people to explore that, because I think it’s really interesting and there’s a lot to uncover. Honestly, digital anthropology is not that different from traditional anthropology. There’s certain rules and differences and etiquette and stuff and different challenges, but overall, you’re still doing the same work. We’re still approaching our questions the same way. We’re still structuring interviews the same way. The surveys are exactly the same. I still take notes on a notebook, like a traditional anthropologist, in my pocket. A lot of the approach is really similar. I really want to encourage people to expand where they think they can do anthropology to digital spaces.

GM [01:05:50]: Similar to Adrian, I think in the upcoming years, again, with “virtual” or “digital,” I prefer “digital ethnography” or “digital anthropology.” I don’t convey “virtual,” because I think of VR for some reason, or video games or chat rooms. That’s what I think of it as well. But I think the upcoming years, I think technology, where we are with AI—I’m sorry to mention AI. I know a lot of people are very like, oh, AI. I have some opinions about AI, but I think having those conversations where it comes to video games, VR, AR, AI, I think as anthropologists and researchers, we have to adapt to these advancements of technologies. I know there’s a lot of hesitation and fighting over it. I do understand it very much, especially the ethical part of it, which is a whole other thing to unravel and get into that would probably be two hours. But I would say the coming years for digital research as anthropologist would be like... I think for me, when I think about online spaces, like I was saying, the physical and digital realm, that eventually the upcoming years, that that won’t be the point of view or perspective of it.

[01:07:28] It will be digital spaces, digital life, is life. It’s not being, oh, I’m online or offline. In the upcoming years, it will be treated as its own life. I think when we think about video games, a lot of people, and even in the years back, that a lot of people’s terminology would be “online” or “offline.” And I think in the upcoming years, like, everybody’s online. And even the younger generation, the older generation, there’s some type of digital adaptability where we’re using our phones. There’s still landline phones, but people are using their phones, texting people. And there’s different... some people don’t even use iMessage sometimes to text their friends. Sometimes they’re having conversations on Instagram or having conversations on Discord. And a lot of people are finding new ways to communicate and connect and have human connections. And, like Adrian was saying, not a lot of these people are antisocial. It’s just that a lot of the people are connecting online with their communities. There’s communities and cultures being created and language and communication, different types of modalities that are happening on digital spaces. And I feel like in the the coming years, that digital spaces are...

[01:09:02] Like, digital life is going to be life. It’s going to be seen that way, that this is not a separate thing. This is this person, as well. People use different names online or different identities. These people are them. Unfortunately, people like to separate identity from online and offline. Eventually, this is going to be like, no, this person, online, offline, combined into one. I think as anthropologists, the upcoming years, that’s going to be the main focus, that these digital spaces are life, not an offline or online thing, but it would be seen more as us documenting these human connections and communities and cultures happening and centering the shifting of—shift focus onto these technologies that are being used and help us better understand. I mean, overall, I think our ethical guidelines would be more shaped of how do we act in these spaces and safe grounds and implementing better tools. I’m pretty sure in the years to come, we’re going to have different software and toolkits with our data collection, and I’m excited about it. But yeah, that’s what I’m hoping for as anthropologists, that we go out there and study these digital spaces, because these are very much part of us.

And hopefully, we don’t have that mindset of like, oh, it’s just digital. It’s just digital. It’s like, we have to adapt and do our job as researchers and expand ourselves into the unknown and connect with these people, because these people are people that you bump into in the coffee shop or people that you see commuting in the freeway. So there’s a lot of work to still be done. I feel like this is just the surface of it.

AE [01:11:17.300]: It was a pleasure talking to you guys today, hearing more about your work and your insights on digital anthropology. Thank you all.

AL [01:11:26]: Thank you for having me. It was really fun, actually.

GM [01:11:28]: Thank you for having me. I had fun having a conversation with you guys. This was very fun.

[01:11:30] Vaporwave 4th Dimension by Thrifter Records

AE [01:11:39]: Thank you for joining us on this first episode of Rewiring the Field. As Adrian and Gloria showed us, digital ethnography is not just about setting new platforms. It’s about rethinking what the field itself is and how we move within it. Their experiences remind us that that access does not automatically equal ethical permission, and that boundaries matter, and that algorithms, feeds, and platform norms shape what we see and who we engage with. In digital spaces, the field is structured not only by communities, but by the conditions of the platforms themselves. They also remind us if the field is something we enter daily through logins, posts, and ongoing participation, then leaving the field also looks different. Fieldwork becomes less about arrival and departure, and more about sustaining trust, accountability, and collaboration over time.

Before we end, I’d like to thank my fellow contributing editors Steffen Hornemann and Adwaita Banerjee for reviewing this episode. And you can find a full transcript of this episode, along with references and links to the projects discussed in the show notes, at culanth.org. That’s c-u-l-a-n-t-h dot org. Thanks for listening, and we’ll see you next time.

[01:12:59] [AnthroPod theme music, All the Colors in the World by Podington Bear]