Researching Global Spaces Ethnographically: Queries on Methods for the Study of Virtual Populations

As with other nation-states, the United States population comprises people living both within as well as outside its geographical borders. Studying United States nationals living abroad presents interesting methodological challenges: on the one hand, there is paucity of demographic data, and, on the...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Human organization 2011-09, Vol.70 (3), p.265-278
Main Author: Freidenberg, Judith
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Americans abroad
Borders
Buenos Aires, Argentina
Communication
Cultural studies
Cyberspace
Demographics
Epistemology
Ethics
Ethnography
Ethnology
Expatriates
Immigrants
Internet
Interpersonal communication
Methodological Problems
Nation states
New Approaches to Methods, Transcultural Health Care and Collaborative Partnerships
Noncitizens
Observational research
Online identity
Participant observation
Population
Population studies
Research methods
Respondents
Social networks
Social research
Transnationalism
U.S.A
United States of America
Virtual communities
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Summary:As with other nation-states, the United States population comprises people living both within as well as outside its geographical borders. Studying United States nationals living abroad presents interesting methodological challenges: on the one hand, there is paucity of demographic data, and, on the other, there is a heavy reliance on virtual communications. Conventional ethnography, based on face-to-face interaction with informants selected at geographically defined sites, proved to be insufficient to understand this population. This paper will explore the methodological challenges of studying transnational populations who communicate through virtual and physical means. Based on a study of United States nationals in Buenos Aires, Argentina, the paper describes the stages of creating a study population and reports on strategies for studying it ethnographically. The result was a virtual ethnography that both provided a background and helped contextualize conventional ethnography. The use of virtual ethnography as a preliminary exploration of the study population contributed to a reflection on the epistemological, methodological, and ethical issues of conventional and virtual ethnography.
ISSN:0018-7259
1938-3525
DOI:10.17730/humo.70.3.e1530767367tqn27