Ariel Heryanto\’s Blog

Blogging as a research tool for ethnographic fieldwork

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Erkan Saka
PhD Candidate in Anthropology
Rice University
Lecturer in Public Relations
Istanbul Bilgi University
sakaerka@gmail.com

Working paper presented to the
EASA Media Anthropology Network e-seminar
19 May- 1 June 2008
http://www.media-anthropology.net/

Abstract
This presentation argues that blogging emerges as a new research tool for the ones conducting ethnographic fieldwork. Moreover, I argue throughout my paper that new media with a particular emphasis in blogging will have even larger consequences for the discipline of anthropology. In order to substantiate my main argument I focus on these issues: a) Blogging might be a remedy to the anxiety of being in ‘after the fact’ that is shared by many anthropologists. Blogging takes place in the present tense while actively engaging with ‘the fact’; b) blogging brings immediate feedback c) not only from the limited scholarly circles but from a wider public/audience d) which exposes the ethnographer to a much more effective issue of accountability. Moreover, e) blogging urges to see motives in a more regular sense, thus creates a strong sense of regularity f) that forces the ethnographer to produce on a regular basis g) with a constant appeal to narrate what would normally remain fragments of fieldnotes. In addition to depending on scholarly sources of interest, this paper exploits the presenter’s own experience of blogging during his fieldwork.