There’s a new blog about ethnography! Ethnography Matters explores what is means to be an ethnographer today.

Of all the amazing blogs out there on anthropology and design, there wasn’t a place where ethnographers who focus on technology & media could discuss and share ideas, methods, and tips. So Heather Ford, Rachelle Annechino, Jenna Burrell, and I decided to make a place just for that!

Here’s an excerpt from our About Us page that explains why we started this blog:

We came together to start this blog because we believe that ethnographic research — with its focus on human experiences in context — is critical for countering the trend towards users as numbers, as digits, as data and as markets. In the push to scale technologies globally, technological talk often focuses on the production and consumption of technological goods — There are Users, Makers, and Artifacts — and very little in between.

We believe in the in between.

This blog will be a place for conversation between academic and applied ethnography, for listening to and thinking about people’s stories, and for analysis and theory focused on the social patterns and contexts of technological (re)use, rejection and  (re)construction.
In the specific frame of technology research and design, ethnography matters because the practice of telling user stories, exposing how technology makes us and how we make technology, can help to direct information tools in the service of human values like empathy, global solidarity, surprise and joy. Ethnography matters because it provides a mechanism for evaluating theories of “revolutionary” technology as grounded in the lived experience of people and communities.

Ethnography matters because it helps to keep technology development real.  Through ethnography we can delve into what we have in common and where we diverge to better envision human possibilities. When we understand this we can, in turn, get a better grasp on why technology matters.

Come check out our latest posts.

• Jenna Burrell has written a great review of Divining a Digital Future: Mess and Mythology in Ubiquitous Computing by Paul Dourish and Genevieve Bell.
• Heather Ford has a reflective piece new geographies of social media.
• I just wrote a piece about the invisibility of ethnography.
• Rachelle wrote an insightful piece about drawings of places before and after big events, like the raids in Occupy Oakland.

Here are some different ways you can keep up with the convo:

1. add our RSS feed
2. follow the tweets for this blog @ethnomatters
3. sing up for the  EthnoZine monthly newsletter for blog updates
4. join the Ethnography Matters Google Groups

We would love ideas and your participation! We would love guest bloggers! Here are some ways you can contribute:

• QUOTES: Do you have a favorite quote about ethnography? Can you share it with us?
• OBJECTS of the TRADE: What’s in your bag? Tell us what you bring with you to the field? Take a picture and send it over! Do you have suggestions for outfits to wear or things to bring?
• QUESTIONS: What questions do you frequently get asked when you talk about ethnography? How do you answer them?
• INTERVIEWS: Any suggestions for who you would like to see interviewed?
• SYLLABUS AS ESSAY: Do you teach a class on ethnographic methods?  Check out the Atlantic’s Syllabus as Essay series for an example and let us know if you have an essay to submit
• TEACHING: What are some tips, videos, or readings that you find useful for teaching and talking about ethnography?
• FAVORITE TEXTS: What are your favorite texts ranging from books, quotes, and journal articles? What are your go-to texts when you need inspiration for ethnography? And would you suggest are the must-read texts?
• SUGGEST A BLOG: Do you have a blog about ethnography or do you know of a great blog about ethnography that we should add to your blogroll?
• PROMOTE A PUBLICATION: Do you have a publication you would like to share? We would love to highlight useful books and articles.
• EVENTS: Is there an upcoming conference that you know of or are organizing that is relevant to ethnography? Let us know and we’ll share it.
• BOOK REVIEW: Is there a book that you would like to see reviewed? Or would you like to review a book?

Send us an email if you have any ideas! ethnographymatters [at sign] gmail [dot] com

My good friend Morgan Ames is putting on a really great afternoon conference in a few weeks at Stanford University, Designing for Freedom: Values in Communication Technologies. It’s a critical examination into how communication technology designers build certain values into their products and how users react to these products. 

Morgan will be speaking on the panel about her dissertation research on OLPC (One Lap Top Per Child) along with two other panelists, Batya Friedman, Jenna Burrell, and Mark Warschauer. And Fred Turner will be moderating the panel!

So get out of the office for a few hours and meet all the awesome people who are coming together for this! If you are in the Bay Area you should come! I will be there so let me know if you end up coming - would love to chat! 

Designing for Freedom: Values in Communication Technologies

Monday, May 17, 2010, 3pm-5:30pm
Stanford UniversityMendenhall Library, McClatchy Hall, Stanford University
Reception following, Free and Open to the Public

Communication technologies have long been heralded as the harbingers of unprecedented freedoms, including the promise of decoupling expression from physical constraints and political scrutiny. These promises are not accidental: many organizations, from private corporations like Google to open-source software projects like One Laptop Per Child, specifically build their machines and software to embody these values. When we account for the sundry cultures of designers and users, what are the implications of these technologies for society and free expression? The 2010 Rebele First Amendment Panel will explore the ways in which the design and use of communication technologies can help or hinder freedom of expression. We will discuss the process by which technologies come to embody and symbolize values, how values are negotiated by various groups as the technology goes into use, and the implications of these processes for free communication. 

This panel brings together three pre-eminent scholars at the forefront of this research area: Batya Friedman,Mark Warschauer, and Jenna Burrell. These scholars draw from myriad disciplines, including anthropology, cultural studies, communication, education, information science, and computer science. Batya Friedman, Professor at the University of Washington and Co-director of the Value-Sensitive Design Research Laboratory, has provided a methodological framework for studying values in the design of technologies and offers a designer’s perspective on the integration of values into technology. Mark Warschauer, Professor at University of California, Irvine and Founding Director of its Digital Learning Lab, is a leading scholar of technology in education, the digital divide, and technology and development. Jenna Burrell, Assistant Professor at University of California, Berkeley, has analyzed technosocial practices in post-colonial countries, particularly Africa. Organizer Morgan Ames will join these scholars by discussing her recent work on the values that families create around communication and media technologies and her upcoming dissertation research on the social meanings of the One Laptop Per Child project. Associate Professor Fred Turner will moderate the discussion.