[Commlist] CfP: Looking back, looking forward: Digital ethnography in 2020

I am delighted to share with you the below call for papers for a one-day 
symposium titled ‘Looking back, looking forward: Digital ethnography in 
2020’ organised by the /LSE Digital Ethnography Collective/.

*When:*Monday 26th October

*Where:*London School of Economics (LSE)

*Submission deadline:*Friday 29th May

***

Digital ethnography is by no means a new methodology. In the 1990s 
researchers begun grappling with issues regarding the cultural impacts 
of the Internet and how to go about conducting ethnographic research 
in/on ‘virtual’ spaces. Since then, we have seen significant 
technological and cultural shifts, most notably the fact that in 2020 
smartphones are commonplace and social media platforms have become a 
ubiquitous part of everyday life in many parts of the world. Whilst 
holding on to the valuable insights of earlier research, digital 
ethnographers are required to remain methodologically agile in order to 
keep up with rapidly changing socio-technological contexts. This one-day 
symposium hosted by the LSE Digital Ethnography Collective invites 
participants to discuss the state of digital ethnographic research in 
2020, by both reaching back into its rich history and thinking about 
future directions. We are inviting submissions spanning from ‘finished 
product’ empirical work to presentations addressing common concerns in 
the practise of carrying out digital ethnographic research (methods, 
ethics, self-reflexivity etc.) in the hopes that the day will generate 
both interesting and useful conversations amongst attendees.

The LSE Digital Ethnography Collective is an interdisciplinary group 
exploring the intersections of digital culture and ethnographic methods, 
with the aim to establish a global community of scholars of digital 
ethnography and to work through challenges in this growing 
subdiscipline. Researchers passionate about digital ethnography are 
dispersed around the globe, and whilst we foster international 
collaboration via our livestreams and mailing list, it’s always a 
pleasure to get together IRL! With this in mind, we are hosting this 
symposium at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) 
on Monday 26th October 2020. There is a particularly sizeable overlap of 
membership between the /LSE Digital Ethnography Collective/ and the 
/Association of Internet Researchers/ and so we have arranged this as a 
*‘satellite event’ to the AoIR Annual Conference*. We concluded that 
many of the members of the MECCSA list might also be interested, so we 
have decided that participants do not have to be attending AoIR to 
submit to this event.

The symposium welcomes digital ethnographers at all levels from PhD 
upwards to submit proposals for 20-minute presentations relating to any 
of the following areas (this is a non-exhaustive list):

   *   bridging the old and the new: innovative but 
historically-grounded approaches to digital ethnographic methodologies

   *   digital culture and everyday life

   *   empirical work relating to the Internet/platforms/social 
media/gaming cultures

   *   digital transformations in work and labour – the gig economy, 
creative industries, datafication, algorithms etc.

   *   critical intersectional feminist ethnography in digital contexts

   *   approaches from the Global South that challenge Western-centric 
digital ethnographic research

   *   self-reflexive accounts of challenges and opportunities in 
digital ethnographic research

   *   inside/outside: entering and exiting the digital ‘field’, 
navigating or moving beyond the online/offline binary, accessing private 
online spaces, local/global and the role of geography in digital 
ethnography, etc.

   *   conducting ethical digital ethnographic research

Please send proposals of 300 words (word document or PDF) 
(toMedia.DigEthnog /at/ lse.ac.uk) <mailto:(Media.DigEthnog /at/ lse.ac.uk)> by 29th 
May 2020. This deadline is designed to be after the notification of 
acceptances for presenters to AoIR, so that applicants will be know if 
they are going to Dublin beforehand. Selected participants will be 
notified by 1st June 2020. The event will be open to non-presenting 
attendees after June 1^st . Please note that, while the symposium is 
free to attend, we cannot provide funding for travel or accommodation.


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