Digital Anthropology

Estos modelos de preservación y distribución de contenidos terroristas se expanden viralmente por redes sociales vulnerables carentes del filtros y apropiados sistemas de control de contenidos. Por lo tanto, metodológicamente, el estudio de estos fenómenos sociales necesitan de la etnometodología y la netnografía, para analizar las actividades cotidianas en los ambientes virtuales , buscando de esta manera construir y dar sentido al significado de las experiencias sociales cotidianas, por medio del desarrollo de instrumentos técnicos para la extracción y análisis de datos producidos en los nuevos ambientes Biocibernéticos.

Relazione per il convegno internazionale "Immagine e memoria nell'era digitale: prospettive filosofiche, storiche e antropologiche", presso l'Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II.
Tra zero e uno: l'ambiguità della memoria digitale globale

Parlando della relazione tra memoria culturale e tecnologie digitali, non si può prescindere da Wikipedia, la più grande enciclopedia online esistente, utilizzata ogni giorno da milioni di utenti in tutto il mondo per la ricerca e l'archiviazione di informazioni. Partendo dall'esame dei record di ricerca dell'ultimo decennio di attività (2007-2017), lo scopo di questo intervento è innanzitutto valutare il tipo di memoria digitale globale che ne risulta, soffermandosi sulle specificità delle tecnologie digitali che hanno contribuito a formarla. Per memorizzazione si può intendere l'inscrizione di segni su un supporto. Questa definizione generale è adattabile a un geroglifico, a una sequenza di DNA, agli anelli d'accrescimento di un albero o alla digitalizzazione di un libro. In tutti questi casi un'informazione viene memorizzata come traccia su un supporto. Invece che un codice di cinque nucleotidi o 26 grafi, le tecnologie digitali usano un codice binario (0/1) per inscrivere delle informazioni su dispositivi di memoria.
La “rivoluzione digitale” rappresenta un potente volano per i processi culturali, come già lo furono l'introduzione della scrittura e della moneta; tuttavia, solo recentemente si stanno arrivando a comprendere tutte le opportunità e i rischi di questo nuovo strumento culturale. La digital anthropology si occupa da decenni di questi temi, focalizzandosi in particolare sulla retorica dell'omogeneizzazione del sapere umano e sulla profonda ambiguità della cultura digitale. In quest'ottica, Wikipedia è un case study ideale: enciclopedia open source e gratuita, le sue voci sono create e modificate da una rete di utenti che cambia costantemente, introducendo problemi di autorialità e autorevolezza. Non solo immagini, ma contenuti multimediali di ogni tipo sono accessibili a chiunque, formando uno dei più grandi centri di memoria digitale, un cantiere per la digitalizzazione del sapere umano, che proprio per questo deve affrontare il problema della neutralità.
Come nella prima legge delle dinamica, la neutralità digitale è una condizione dove tutte le forze culturali sono bilanciate, dove cioè gli interessi sociali, economici o politici degli utenti vengono sospesi o annullati per ottenere una conoscenza “pura”. Tuttavia, è facile accorgersi di come gli stessi record di ricerca mostrino ambiguità, orientamenti, specificità che riflettono le dinamiche e gli interessi di un mondo globale che cambia. Il caso di Wikipedia diventa interessante per capire come anche un'immagine possa perdere la sua “neutralità” nel mondo digitale, diventando parte di un sapere disomogeneo, viscoso, in cui il peso complessivo delle interrelazioni virtuali arriva a riflettersi sul modo in cui interpretiamo la realtà intorno a noi, influenzando nel profondo la cultura umana.

The study of online communities has not only prompted researchers to adapt traditional social research methods, but has also necessitated the development of ‘natively’ digital methods and hybrid approaches. While the effect of computer-mediated communication (CMC) on traditional methods like interviewing and participant observation deserves attention, these methods and their implications will be relatively familiar to the social researcher. For the enterprising digital ethnographer, a command of the new forms of unobtrusive methods made possible by computers and Internet access is crucial to fully exploring online social interactions and preserving the protection and privacy of study participants. In this paper, I will review the role played by unobtrusive methods in the ethnographic project, how these methods can be adapted to study online communities, and the ethical issues that must be considered when employing them. I find that while digital unobtrusive methods offer a treasure trove of new sources of information which may aid in the understanding of online social behavior, the ethnographer’s obligation to reflect on the impact of their research on the community of study and their own position vis-à-vis the community remains just as important, if not more so.

Dear Colleagues,
We are happy to announce the second interdisciplinary online scholarly conference within a cycle entitled Humans in a Technological World: The Anthropology of Technics. This event is hosted by The Philosophy of Technics Student Circle and the Institute of Philosophy of The Jagiellonian University, which is among the earliest and most prominent universities in Central and Eastern Europe. The conference will take place on May 9-10, 2019 in a virtual location used by Academia Electronica of The Institute of Philosophy at the Jagiellonian University, which functions within the virtual environment of Second Life (we will provide all essential information in the conference brochure). On the first day of the conference we will hold a meeting devoted to the establishment of The Polish Society of The Philosophy of Technics.
This conference, which will entirely take place in Second Life, aims to develop interdisciplinary dialogue within the field of anthropological technics and to integrate researchers who address subjects related to the role and place of humans in a dynamically changing world of technological and technical expansion. In particular, we are eager to listen to speakers who intend, through anthropological analysis, to discuss issues relating humans to the development of computer and information technology, the virtual environment, and a wide-range approach to artificial intelligence (automation, self-sustainability, and the singularity).
Due to the fact that technoanthropology is a relatively recent scientific discipline, we cordially invite all researchers of related fields such as cyber anthropology, digital anthropology, technoself-studies. We also welcome researchers from the fields of the philosophy of technology, psychology, literature studies, scholars of new media, members of the electronic art community and those who tackle topics associated with transhumanism and posthumanism.
Please submit the abstract of your twenty-minute talk to sekcjafilozofiitechniki@gmail.com by March 31, 2019. Submission must include your academic degree, first and last name, your e-mail address, affiliation/ workplace, a title and abstract, and a statement of your consent giving permission for processing the data submitted for The Best Abstracts Contest. The organizers reserve the right to exclude and select submissions. We will inform you about your submission qualification or rejection by April 14, 2019.
The conference is free of charge (no conference fees), and participation certificates will be sent to each participating speaker.
If you have any questions, please send them to the following address: sekcjafilozofiitechniki@gmail.com.
Head of the Organizing Committee,
Mariusz Markiewicz (The Jagiellonian University in Cracow, Poland)
Event Page :
Faceook: https://www.facebook.com/events/2032312523549228/
The Institute of Philosophy of the Jagiellonian University website: https://filozofia.uj.edu.pl/wydarzenia-w-if/-/journal_content/56_INSTANCE_OBCsoa19hL6W/4371778/142028884

Interdisciplinary Workshop: “Knowing that People Care”: Setting New Priorities for Research into Mental Health and Social Media

University of Birmingham, UK, 15th March 2019, 9.30am - 5pm

Relationships between social media and mental health have been at the forefront of recent news headlines, as well as a prominent focus of discussions across academia, policy and the third sector.
Renewed calls for technology providers to enhance their safeguarding and monitoring processes have been propelled by concern about how content, such as that related to self-harm and suicide, may negatively impact mental health and wellbeing.

Whilst recognising the potential for harm posed by social media, this workshop aims to broaden discussions and consider alternative perspectives. Key note presentations from a mental health advocate and an academic will be joined by research papers and multi-disciplinary and cross-sectoral discussions. A particular focus of these will be to critically examine the care and support around mental health found on social media.

We invite research papers of 10-15 minutes that engage with, but are not limited to, the following questions:

• What is the impact of social media on mental health?
• Why do people turn to social media to seek support for mental health difficulties?
• Does engaging with online material and discussions around mental health have a positive or negative effect?
• How should social media be regulated in a way that supports rather than further endangers people living through distress or mental ill-health?
• What are the complexities and ambiguities of online support for mental health, and what might the challenges or implications of this be?
• How might online forms of support and care around mental health be fostered to enhance offline support?

Abstracts should be submitted to Anna Lavis: a.c.lavis@bham.ac.uk by February 21st 2019.

This workshop is the culmination of our Wellcome Trust-funded research into self-harm and social media. Find out more about our work here:

Research website: https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/careonsocialmedia

Article in the Conversation:  https://theconversation.com/self-harm-and-social-media-a-knee-jerk-ban-on-content-could-actually-harm-young-people-111381

Vietnamese Anthropology is dominated by a particular mode of knowing akin to an experimentum model of acquiring knowledge, where the privileged expert acquires knowledge through a highly sophisticated and exclusive scientific process. However, there is also another means in which knowledge could be produced and acquired. Experientia is an alternative model where laypersons could acquire knowledge through experiential learning in the lived everyday and accumulation from the common experience shared by all. We have arrived at a new historical juncture in the globalizing digital present where ordinary individuals could play (and are already playing) an active role in the complex process of acquiring knowledge of the social. They could be “produsers” in the digitally connected globalizing present rather than either simply “producers” or “consumers.” In other words, digital empowerment of the individual could help us better capture the world sans pervasive ethnographic authorship of the anthropologist. Several pertinent questions arise from this consideration. Are ordinary individuals who take on the roles of produsers considered scientific players? What is the academic or scientific “deliverable”? How do we learn? Is this mode of knowing mediated by the social and the affective senses thus rendering it effectively multiple, relational and ephemeral?

Vietnamese Anthropology is dominated by a particular mode of knowing akin to an experimentum model of acquiring knowledge, where the privileged expert acquire knowledge through a highly sophisticated and exclusive scientific process. However, there is also another means in which knowledge could be produced and acquired. Experientia is an alternative model where laypersons could acquire knowledge through experiential learning in the lived everyday and accumulation from the common experience shared by all. We have arrived at a new historical juncture in the globalizing digital present where ordinary individuals could play (and are already playing) an active role in the complex process of acquiring knowledge of the social. They could be “produsers” in the digitally connected globalizing present rather than either simply “producers” or “consumers.” In other words, digital empowerment of the individual could help us better capture the world sans pervasive ethnographic authorship of the anthropologist. Several pertinent questions arise from this consideration. Are ordinary individuals who take on the roles of produsers considered scientific players? What is the academic or scientific “deliverable”? How do we learn? Is this mode of knowing mediated by the social and the affective senses thus rendering it effectively multiple, relational and ephemeral?

Chapter in edited volume From Here to Ubiquity: Critical and International Perspectives on Mobile and Ubiquitous Media, edited by Michael S. Daubs and Vincent Manzerolle. New York, NY: Peter Lange International Academic Publishers. 2017. Pp. 219-236.

The ageing population of the UK is growing in number, and with it, the cost of care for elderly. As people advance with age, they fall into a ‘pattern’ of doing things.

For the Keeping Connected Challenge Competition organised by Technology Strategy Board & The Design Council in 2012,  I led a team of social scientists to design an entry that will benefit the elderly.

The device that my team and I proposed for the Assisted Living Innovation Platform (ALIP) was to be one that socially intervene the loneliness in the elderly person. Due to regulatory constraints, it was not envisioned as a medical device at the initial stage, but as a social product that mediates the presence of the elderly user through web connectivity, as an adjunct for talk therapy where medical intervention is not deemed necessary in offsetting the loneliness and also as a reliable and simple personal digital assistant.

The idea of Gulong, a flexible electronic display placemat, is derived from the anthropological observation of the Oriental and Malayo-Polynesian custom of ‘rolling’ and ‘folding’ traditional artefacts made of paper or woven pandana-type mats, containers and food wrappers. While socialising in the UK can be done over a cup of tea placed on a table, the East and Southeast Asians would roll a mat out to invite guests to sit down and have a cup a tea. Rolling, weaving, pleating and folding are techniques appropriated around their traditional artefacts – a piece of paper, a piece of rug, a woven pandana mat or a bamboo roll. Artefacts are unrolled and flattened out on the floor to initiate social interactions, and then rolled up and stored away when the interaction ends to signal the end of a particular ritual.

This text aims at analysing networked environments in artistic/performative practices focusing on the unstable quality of Internet connections and in that sense how can that be discussed in order to comprehend these systems of communication, within the digital sphere, aknowledging its failure as a fundamental charatheristic of such environments and its correlation between humans and the digital.

Departing from a body of artworks by Contemporary Argentinean artists, I raised questions related to the contemporary human condition embedded in digital life: psychopathologies, the cancellation of dead time, the characteristics of the new subjectivity, the de-activation of the potency of the body. From the understanding of this big and complex panorama, I embedded myself in media theory, sociology and philosophy, to contextualise how algorithmic culture affect the global subject. Moreover, I have also tried to think of the differences in which the global and the local intersect along this paradigm, setting some hypotheses which I am working now in the second part of this investigation. In "Lightening the Existential Vacuum", my analysis about the artists’ works highlighted the potency of the body in the Internet Era, and speculated around local differences between Latin American, Central Europe and the U.S.

This paper was presented as my dissertation at Goldsmiths, University of London (Sept 2017) - MA Contemporary Art Theory