A great essay “Doing Anthropology in Cyberspace: Fieldwork Boundaries and Social Environments” by Mario J.L. Guimaraes Jr has prompted questions about my two-avatar approach & the need to mask my identity as a researcher for the ethnographic portion of this project. I’ve begun to really evaluate what sorts of data will most directly answer my research question(s). And I’ve realized that my original approach adds up to two pots of data that would be like comparing apples and oranges — the apples being 1:1 interviews with SL super users and the oranges being ethnographic data from observing a different group of SL users.
Instead, why not use one avatar, disclose my identity as a researcher to all subjects involved, and do both observation and interviews with the same population? No decisions yet, just something to chew on…
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