Aging in a Digitalized World: Beyond a User/Non-User Framework*

Sophie Colas** Engagement with digital technology takes numerous, often very abstract and tenuous forms that sometimes involve the intervention of other people. Such multiple engagement with digital technology appears to be particularly relevant in old age but would probably apply to other age groups likewise. While studying how elderly Parisians engage with ICT (Information and […]

How Can You Approach the Field Digitally? Reflections on Using Social Media Profiles in Ethnographic Research*

Simone Pfeifer** As contact restrictions tightened last year with the developing pandemic, ever more colleagues began asking me for advice on “how to do digital ethnography”, knowing that I had been doing it since long before the virus transformed life as we knew it. Their immediate concern was “how to enter their field digitally” to transform […]

Smartphones and Public Anthropology

Sanderien Verstappen* Report on the RAI conference panel “Critical play: Smartphones as a mode of creative engagement with crisis” during the RAI Film Festival 2021. Smartphones are increasingly used in anthropological research, teaching, and knowledge dissemination. While their usage is not limited to the pandemic, situations of social distancing and online teaching have increased the dependency […]

Only Half the Story – Rethinking the Relationship Between Digital Ethnographers and Their Devices*

Franziska Weidle** In their initial post to this blog series, Monika Palmberger and Philipp Budka highlight, among other things, that “the incorporation and integration of technological devices and apps as ‘research tools’ have the potential to contribute to new modes of collaboration by ‘democratizing’ the relationship between researchers and research partners”. In a STS or […]

Panel “Digital Ethnography” at VANDA2020

We are excited to announce the presenters of the panel “Digital Ethnography: Revisiting Theoretical Concepts and Methodological Approaches” at Vienna Anthropology Days 2020 (VANDA2020), Sept. 28 – Oct. 1, 2020, which will take place online on Oct. 1. The panel will be chaired by DEI co-founders Philipp Budka and Monika Palmberger.

DEI Website Launched!

Our new website is now online. In the blog, we will be presenting and discussing various research activities, projects and events in relation to “the digital” at the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Vienna and beyond. Stay tuned!