Developing Cyberethnographic Research Methods for Understanding Digitally Mediated Identities

Abstract

In this essay, we discuss the production of subjectivities at the intersection of local/global and online/offline environments through an engagement with the contexts ethnographically, to illustrate a methodology based on epistemologies of doing. We suggest that researchers studying the production of identity in technospaces must engage in the production of culture and subjectivity in the specific context while interacting with others doing the same in order to gain a nuanced understanding of how identities are formed and performed in such socio-economic environments. Identities thus produced are central to the workings of community situated in specific social, economic and cultural practices and structures of power. Through examining practices that shape these identity formations within various technological environments, we can work towards developing theoretical frameworks that actively shift hierarchies of oppression. URN: urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs0703355