Teaching Digital Anthropology

[Keith Hart]

The University College of London (UCL) Department of Anthropology has this year launched an MA in Digital Anthropology -- Practice, Theory and Ethnography. It lists as the "three key components in the study of digital culture":

1. Skills training in digital technologies, including our own Digital Lab, from internet and digital film editing to e-curation and digital ethnography.

2. Anthropological theories of virtualism, materiality/immateriality and digitisation.

3. Understanding the consequences of digital culture through the ethnographic study of its social and regional impact.

This provides a framework for us to discuss UCL's approach to teaching this subject and to add information and commentary about initiatives elsewhere.

[Paula Uimonen]

Keith, thanks for starting this discussion. I teach a Master's level course in Digital Anthropology at the Department of Social Anthropology, Stockholm University. I set up the course last year and have now taught it twice. The course attracts students from our Master's Programme as well as students from other disciplines, which is a bit challenging but also very stimulating. I have a slightly different angle than the UCL programme, as I also incorporate anthropological network theories that predate the Internet.

Am constantly on the look out for up to date course literature, written by anthropologists. Would be great to get some ideas through this forum. Happy to share my reading list if anyone is interested in seeing it.

[Keith Hart]

Hi Paula, It would be great if you could add more substance to this post. For example, you could make your course outline available as a link or in the text box for the Group. I think it is a powerful idea to place digital anthropology within a longer run discussion of networks. I find that this old preoccupation gets more interesting by the year as the 'new science of networks', linked to the sciences of complexity, unfolds. I wrote a short related piece recently on the shift in models of statistical distribution from bell curve to power law.

Paula Uimonen said:

Keith, thanks for starting this discussion. I teach a Master's level course in Digital Anthropology at the Department of Social Anthropology, Stockholm University. I set up the course last year and have now taught it twice. The course attracts students from our Master's Programme as well as students from other disciplines, which is a bit challenging but also very stimulating. I have a slightly different angle than the UCL programme, as I also incorporate anthropological network theories that predate the Internet.
Am constantly on the look out for up to date course literature, written by anthropologists. Would be great to get some ideas through this forum. Happy to share my reading list if anyone is interested in seeing it.

[Lane DeNicola]

Hi Keith (and others),

Very happy to see a thread opening on the pedagogical questions (and to be mentioned in their articulation). As you can imagine, these very questions are pushing nearly every other concern down into the noise right now for me personally! Keeping in mind I can only speak for myself and not the others involved in the new programme here in the UCL Anthropology Department (or certainly UCL itself), there are a few thoughts I can contribute.

I'll start off by way of a timely news item. By now many if not most of the individuals reading this would've heard or seen something about the just released "Digital Anthropology Report: The Six Tribes of Homo Digitalis" issued by the British telecom TalkTalk. The objective of the research underlying the report (which is focused on Internet use in the UK) was ostensibly "to find out more about how digital technology has changed our behaviour...to find out what homo digitalis really looks like." A key component of the report is a use classification system that places users in one of six categories, including "digital extroverts," "timid technophobes," and so on (see the report link above for the full system).

Circulation of the announcement has so far been fairly rapid, including for example industry blogs and this story in the Telegraph headlined "People in North East 'are most timid internet users'." David Zeitlyn at the University of Kent (one of the principals involved in the study) is quoted in the story as suggesting that "Online engagement will soon replace social class as the most powerful determiner of economic success, damaging the career prospects of internet refuseniks," and that "there was a danger that people who did not embrace the web would be cut off from its financial and professional benefits."

A number of things I note about this initially that have relevance to Digital Anthropology pedagogy (and further reflection will be on my agenda, certainly). First of course is that a major telecommunications company is issuing something they're referring to as a "Digital Anthropology Report," replete with allusions to an anachronistic, almost caricatured anthropology—the framing of a cultural taxonomy, terms like "tribes" and "Homo Digitalis," etc. Zeitlyn himself has already responded online that despite early misgivings he largely agrees with the folks at TalkTalk that the term "tribes" has a conventional understanding—"labile shifting groupings whose membership may change with time"—that should be given precedence in the context of this report.

Another obvious observation is the dubious contours of a popularly-circulated, telecom-sponsored report effectively warning that "people who do not embrace the web will be cut off from its financial and professional benefits." It seems not too far-reaching to interrogate even the use of the term "Internet refusenik" (whoever might've initiated its discursive circulation) as having a questionable etymological basis (e.g. why not "Cautious" or "Skeptical adopters"?). I won't belabour the point, and I certainly don't want to suggest that anthropologists don't have genuine, substantive contributions to make to ICT design, but I do want to put forth that there are too many popular misconceptions about the approaches and objectives of social research (and perhaps especially anthropology) to let patent caricatures of the field end up becoming its "public face," and I do wonder if that possibility isn't a risk here. More involved scrutiny of the report itself and its place in wider "digital divide" discussions is warranted—and perhaps even a fruitful subject for discussion in a Digital Anthropology seminar!—but that's a different thread.

The last thing I'll mention here are some of the tentative "first principles" so-far discussed in the context of our early seminars (the articulation of which is especially important given that we have students with backgrounds in journalism, marketing, and communications, and only a minority with significant prior training in anthropology). I'll mention these for the moment without too much embellishment and perhaps they'll be useful just to seed discussion:

digital media and technology are cultural phenomena (and must be analysed accordingly)
"digital culture" is not exclusively (or even mostly) "that which happens online"
"digital culture" is neither white, male, nor First World
digital culture (and therefore the meaning we ascribe it) is mediated both by our senses and by institutions
empirical observation of actual human behaviour in context is crucial
thick description: describes the behaviour but also its meaning (so that an outsider can understand it)
the dual imperative of "making the strange familiar" and "making the familiar strange"

We have also initiated discussion on what precisely "the digital" refers to, what changes and processes "digitisation" entails, and the modernist myth of "technological progress." The practical that attends the course is a first response to the idea that digital anthropologists must be versed (as social anthropologists generally) in the practices, language, and "visual grammar" of the communities and phenomena they investigate. How to develop that sensibility without overwhelming students coming from such different backgrounds is certainly a challenge, and one I'm relishing at the moment...

More to come.

[Keith Hart]

Lane DeNicola said:

We have also initiated discussion on what precisely "the digital" refers to, what changes and processes "digitisation" entails, and the modernist myth of "technological progress."

I wonder how the following bears on your approach to defining "the digital":

The transmission of information through machines has traditionally come in the form of waves, imperceptible gradations of light and sound. For communications engineers, analogue and digital computation rest on measuring and counting, respectively: on the one hand, continuous changes in physical variables like age, height, warmth or speed; on the other, discontinuous leaps between discrete entities, such as days of the week, dollars and cents, puppies in a litter, letters of the alphabet, named individuals. Analogue processes, such as time and distance, can be represented digitally; but it was something of a breakthrough for early modern science to measure continuous physical change with precision. Before that the clarity of phenomena was generally enhanced and comparison facilitated by constructing bounded entities that could be counted, by digitisation.

Digital numeration is at its clearest when the only possible signals are binary: on/off, yes/no, either/or, 0/1. And it is this reversion to an older system of simple enumeration which lies behind the latest revolution in communications. Digitisation greatly increases the speed and reliability of information processing and transmission; it also lies behind the rapid convergence of what were once discrete systems: television, telephones, computers. The last have been digital from the beginning and telephones have almost completed the shift from sound waves to digital transmission. Television too is now beginning the process of digitisation. What it means is that any kind of information can be carried by any piece of equipment which becomes essentially substitutable. Communications technology in future will consist in various combinations of screen, computer and transmitter/receiver. The manufacturing monopolists will fight over whether the resulting hybrids resemble more a television, a PC or a telephone. But the process common to all is digitisation and it is this precise moment of convergence which lends to the digital revolution its specificity.

[Beck J]

I have a question as someone who is not yet completed studies but wants to work in anthropology of ICts field. Why are people referring to this field as digital anthropology? For instance, Paula Uimonen called her course "Digital Anthropology" and this discussion is called "Digital anthropology" yet all the content refers to ICTs and specifically Internet and mobile technologies and more specifically everyday usage of them - I think. Should we be including digital television in these discussions, as well as interfaced objects such scanners, robots, locators and so on.

[Paula Uimonen]

I use the term digital anthropology to capture a wide range of digital technologies (and the process of digitisation that Keith elaborated on, which makes a fundamental difference). You could say these technologies are also broadly defined as ICTs (which in itself tends to be loosely defined), if the term incorporates things like digital photography and VDO, or digital television as you mention, which I like to include in digital anthropology.

I am working on a definition of digital anthropology along the lines of "the anthropology of the development and use of digital media and communication technologies in different social and cultural contexts." Would appreciate comments on this as it is work in progress.

I am also disturbed by the Digital Anthropology Report, and my guess is that unless anthropologists speak up equally loud and clear, with an empirically grounded critical voice, this telecom report of dubious quality will function as a canon for various decision makers and possibly the general public.

As for the suggestion that nothing substantive has been produced by anthropologists in this field since Miller and Slater's book of 2000, I beg to differ. To substantiate my point, may I start by pointing to two excellent books published only last year:

Boellstorff, Tom. 2008. Coming of Age in Second Life. An Anthropologist Explores the Virtually Human. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Kelty, Christopher. 2008. Two Bits. The Cultural Significance of Free Software. Duke University Press. Online at http://twobits.net

I'd be happy to share my reading list in Digital Anthropology as Keith suggested, but need further advise on where to post it.

Beck J said:

I have a question as someone who is not yet completed studies but wants to work in anthropology of ICts field. Why are people referring to this field as digital anthropology? For instance, Paula Uimonen called her course "Digital Anthropology" and this discussion is called "Digital anthropology" yet all the content refers to ICTs and specifically Internet and mobile technologies and more specifically everyday usage of them - I think. Should we be including digital television in these discussions, as well as interfaced objects such scanners, robots, locators and so on.

[Keith Hart]

Paula Uimonen said:

I'd be happy to share my reading list in Digital Anthropology as Keith suggested, but need further advise on where to post it.

Paula, I haven't used this mechanism before, so I tested it out by uploading a link to a paper of my own. There is a text box at the beginning of the Discussion Group (not this discussion). You can upload a link or a file through that, giving it whatever header you want. Others may want to post materials here.

[Beck J]

yes I have copies of Boellstorf's and Kelty's works that you mention. They differ from Miller I think in that Miller is adamant about placing Internet use in a place which appeals to me. I think Postill from the UK is another anthropologist who worked in Indonesia or Malaysia, I cant remember which, who also seems to want to come at the internet from the perspective of place, I maybe wrong there. Boellstorf's and Kelty's work is interesting but its focused on online and I am not sure I think of it as anthropological in the way Ithink Miller's is. I kept wondering when I read their works - where are all the people? I also found Kelty's work loaded with ideological baggage - treating the open source group as if itis a group. I like Miller''s approach because he takes a real group of people that he knows and tells us a little about how they are using the Internet andprovides a way that we can use to compare across places.

Yes that report is bizarre the more I think about it. I am thinking that perhaps the academics had little control over the final production and that might be the problem. Funny, it could be about ownership of content. We just had Rupert Murdoch(the owner of News Corp) attacking free content providers like BBC and ABC (Oz) and advising the Chinese to control piracy and limit free content. The head of the ABC here in Oz has criticised Murdoch as being out of touch. I think Murdoch might be the one on the ball somehow - because I can't see capital just leaving the internets alone. But I dont know.

Paula Uimonen said:

I use the term digital anthropology to capture a wide range of digital technologies (and the process of digitisation that Keith elaborated on, which makes a fundamental difference). You could say these technologies are also broadly defined as ICTs (which in itself tends to be loosely defined), if the term incorporates things like digital photography and VDO, or digital television as you mention, which I like to include in digital anthropology.

I am working on a definition of digital anthropology along the lines of "the anthropology of the development and use of digital media and communication technologies in different social and cultural contexts." Would appreciate comments on this as it is work in progress.

I am also disturbed by the Digital Anthropology Report, and my guess is that unless anthropologists speak up equally loud and clear, with an empirically grounded critical voice, this telecom report of dubious quality will function as a canon for various decision makers and possibly the general public.

As for the suggestion that nothing substantive has been produced by anthropologists in this field since Miller and Slater's book of 2000, I beg to differ. To substantiate my point, may I start by pointing to two excellent books published only last year:

Boellstorff, Tom. 2008. Coming of Age in Second Life. An Anthropologist Explores the Virtually Human. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Kelty, Christopher. 2008. Two Bits. The Cultural Significance of Free Software. Duke University Press. Online at http://twobits.net

I'd be happy to share my reading list in Digital Anthropology as Keith suggested, but need further advise on where to post it.

Beck J said:

I have a question as someone who is not yet completed studies but wants to work in anthropology of ICts field. Why are people referring to this field as digital anthropology? For instance, Paula Uimonen called her course "Digital Anthropology" and this discussion is called "Digital anthropology" yet all the content refers to ICTs and specifically Internet and mobile technologies and more specifically everyday usage of them - I think. Should we be including digital television in these discussions, as well as interfaced objects such scanners, robots, locators and so on.

[Beck J]

I was wondering, do you think there is a tendency for American academics to think culture and European academics to think social and therefore the Americans go off searching for cultures like in SL and WOW cultures and Europeans go off looking for self sustaining networks and what people do? Aquestion from my teacher btw. Also I am trying to read some Asian and African approaches to the Internet to see they have produced anything better.

Oh btw just to reply to the digital label, I know that the digital thingy is a big part of it all - discrete packets/pulses but so too is all the other stuff such as developments in material science for example. The problem I have with digital is that it is a marketing tool used to sell things so now everything is digital, but my use of my ipod or phone is not digital.

Beck J said:

yes I have copies of Boellstorf's and Kelty's works that you mention. They differ from Miller I think in that Miller is adamant about placing Internet use in a place which appeals to me. I think Postill from the UK is another anthropologist who worked in Indonesia or Malaysia, I cant remember which, who also seems to want to come at the internet from the perspective of place, I maybe wrong there. Boellstorf's and Kelty's work is interesting but its focused on online and I am not sure I think of it as anthropological in the way Ithink Miller's is. I kept wondering when I read their works - where are all the people? I also found Kelty's work loaded with ideological baggage - treating the open source group as if itis a group. I like Miller''s approach because he takes a real group of people that he knows and tells us a little about how they are using the Internet andprovides a way that we can use to compare across places.

Yes that report is bizarre the more I think about it. I am thinking that perhaps the academics had little control over the final production and that might be the problem. Funny, it could be about ownership of content. We just had Rupert Murdoch(the owner of News Corp) attacking free content providers like BBC and ABC (Oz) and advising the Chinese to control piracy and limit free content. The head of the ABC here in Oz has criticised Murdoch as being out of touch. I think Murdoch might be the one on the ball somehow - because I can't see capital just leaving the internets alone. But I dont know.

Paula Uimonen said:

I use the term digital anthropology to capture a wide range of digital technologies (and the process of digitisation that Keith elaborated on, which makes a fundamental difference). You could say these technologies are also broadly defined as ICTs (which in itself tends to be loosely defined), if the term incorporates things like digital photography and VDO, or digital television as you mention, which I like to include in digital anthropology.

I am working on a definition of digital anthropology along the lines of "the anthropology of the development and use of digital media and communication technologies in different social and cultural contexts." Would appreciate comments on this as it is work in progress.

I am also disturbed by the Digital Anthropology Report, and my guess is that unless anthropologists speak up equally loud and clear, with an empirically grounded critical voice, this telecom report of dubious quality will function as a canon for various decision makers and possibly the general public.

As for the suggestion that nothing substantive has been produced by anthropologists in this field since Miller and Slater's book of 2000, I beg to differ. To substantiate my point, may I start by pointing to two excellent books published only last year:

Boellstorff, Tom. 2008. Coming of Age in Second Life. An Anthropologist Explores the Virtually Human. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Kelty, Christopher. 2008. Two Bits. The Cultural Significance of Free Software. Duke University Press. Online at http://twobits.net

I'd be happy to share my reading list in Digital Anthropology as Keith suggested, but need further advise on where to post it.

Beck J said:

I have a question as someone who is not yet completed studies but wants to work in anthropology of ICts field. Why are people referring to this field as digital anthropology? For instance, Paula Uimonen called her course "Digital Anthropology" and this discussion is called "Digital anthropology" yet all the content refers to ICTs and specifically Internet and mobile technologies and more specifically everyday usage of them - I think. Should we be including digital television in these discussions, as well as interfaced objects such scanners, robots, locators and so on.

[Paula Uimonen]

I think there is a tendency for American anthropologists to focus on culture while British anthropologists tend to be more interested in social relations/organization, but one of the nice things about coming from a more peripheral place like Stockholm University is that we perhaps have greater freedom in looking at both, e.g. the social organization/distribution of culture (a la Hannerz). Still, I think Boellstorff's and Kelty's work are excellent, not least since they dig deeper into on-line social forms than Miller and Slater did. Thus Kelty actually says something meaningful (some pun intended) about the culture of the Internet, based on the values and beliefs of the open source community (which certainly exists empirically), which is a topic that Miller (unfortunately) stays clear of.

Would love to hear more about the Asian and African work. References to share?

Beck J said:

I was wondering, do you think there is a tendency for American academics to think culture and European academics to think social and therefore the Americans go off searching for cultures like in SL and WOW cultures and Europeans go off looking for self sustaining networks and what people do? Aquestion from my teacher btw. Also I am trying to read some Asian and African approaches to the Internet to see they have produced anything better.

Oh btw just to reply to the digital label, I know that the digital thingy is a big part of it all - discrete packets/pulses but so too is all the other stuff such as developments in material science for example. The problem I have with digital is that it is a marketing tool used to sell things so now everything is digital, but my use of my ipod or phone is not digital.

Beck J said:

yes I have copies of Boellstorf's and Kelty's works that you mention. They differ from Miller I think in that Miller is adamant about placing Internet use in a place which appeals to me. I think Postill from the UK is another anthropologist who worked in Indonesia or Malaysia, I cant remember which, who also seems to want to come at the internet from the perspective of place, I maybe wrong there. Boellstorf's and Kelty's work is interesting but its focused on online and I am not sure I think of it as anthropological in the way Ithink Miller's is. I kept wondering when I read their works - where are all the people? I also found Kelty's work loaded with ideological baggage - treating the open source group as if itis a group. I like Miller''s approach because he takes a real group of people that he knows and tells us a little about how they are using the Internet andprovides a way that we can use to compare across places.

Yes that report is bizarre the more I think about it. I am thinking that perhaps the academics had little control over the final production and that might be the problem. Funny, it could be about ownership of content. We just had Rupert Murdoch(the owner of News Corp) attacking free content providers like BBC and ABC (Oz) and advising the Chinese to control piracy and limit free content. The head of the ABC here in Oz has criticised Murdoch as being out of touch. I think Murdoch might be the one on the ball somehow - because I can't see capital just leaving the internets alone. But I dont know.

Paula Uimonen said:

I use the term digital anthropology to capture a wide range of digital technologies (and the process of digitisation that Keith elaborated on, which makes a fundamental difference). You could say these technologies are also broadly defined as ICTs (which in itself tends to be loosely defined), if the term incorporates things like digital photography and VDO, or digital television as you mention, which I like to include in digital anthropology.

I am working on a definition of digital anthropology along the lines of "the anthropology of the development and use of digital media and communication technologies in different social and cultural contexts." Would appreciate comments on this as it is work in progress.

I am also disturbed by the Digital Anthropology Report, and my guess is that unless anthropologists speak up equally loud and clear, with an empirically grounded critical voice, this telecom report of dubious quality will function as a canon for various decision makers and possibly the general public.

As for the suggestion that nothing substantive has been produced by anthropologists in this field since Miller and Slater's book of 2000, I beg to differ. To substantiate my point, may I start by pointing to two excellent books published only last year:

Boellstorff, Tom. 2008. Coming of Age in Second Life. An Anthropologist Explores the Virtually Human. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Kelty, Christopher. 2008. Two Bits. The Cultural Significance of Free Software. Duke University Press. Online at http://twobits.net

I'd be happy to share my reading list in Digital Anthropology as Keith suggested, but need further advise on where to post it.

Beck J said:

I have a question as someone who is not yet completed studies but wants to work in anthropology of ICts field. Why are people referring to this field as digital anthropology? For instance, Paula Uimonen called her course "Digital Anthropology" and this discussion is called "Digital anthropology" yet all the content refers to ICTs and specifically Internet and mobile technologies and more specifically everyday usage of them - I think. Should we be including digital television in these discussions, as well as interfaced objects such scanners, robots, locators and so on.

[Paula Uimonen]

hmm, while such a text box appears on my page, i don't get it on this group page, and while i see the text bok you have added on this group page, i can't add to it. could it be that you have some super-editing powers?

Keith Hart said:

Paula Uimonen said:

I'd be happy to share my reading list in Digital Anthropology as Keith suggested, but need further advise on where to post it.

Paula, I haven't used this mechanism before, so I tested it out by uploading a link to a paper of my own. There is a text box at the beginning of the Discussion Group (not this discussion). You can upload a link or a file through that, giving it whatever header you want. Others may want to post materials here.

[Keith Hart]

It appears that I do have such powers in my capacity of Network Creator (just call me God). I believe you can put an attachment in the main comment wall by clicking on the far right icon. Sorry, Ning moves in mysterious ways.

Paula Uimonen said:

hmm, while such a text box appears on my page, i don't get it on this group page, and while i see the text bok you have added on this group page, i can't add to it. could it be that you have some super-editing powers?