How Not to Be Seen: Digital Ethnography and Visibility

Text: Heikki Uimonen

‘The camera is a tool for idlers, who use a machine to do their seeing for them. To draw oneself, to trace the lines, handle the volumes, organise the surface… all this means first to look, and then to observe and finally perhaps to discover…’ (Le Corbusier in Kortan 1997/2005, 28).

Le Corbusier’s provocative idea about the differences between drawing a picture and taking a photograph paves the way for considering the transformation of ethnographic documentation. Traditional documentation methods such as notebooks are now being complemented by contemporary digital tools such as laptops, digital audio recorders, lightweight video cameras, private messaging apps and GPS trackers.

This topic has been long and widely debated in ethnomusicological research.  The advent of recording devices brought about a paradigm shift in fieldwork, facilitating the collection of data through the process of recording in the field, as opposed to the traditional method of taking notes and transcribing performed music. Likewise, the arrival of new digital equipment in fieldwork has raised a number of epistemological questions. The potential for data collection with these tools and the characteristics of digital ethnography are worth exploring, including how digital ethnography fosters the researcher’s relationship with the environment.

SOMECO’s listening walks illustrate this change quite clearly. By conducting the walks on the same route several times a day, they made the scholars’ presence visible to residents in their own neighbourhood. Consequently, it is unsurprising that a researcher undertaking their walks is likely to attract the attention of locals, and that these interactions result in conversations about the nature of the walk. In Bissingen, Meri Kytö ended up answering construction workers’ questions about whether she was a police when she took notes during the listening walk. Also, as the evening wore on, Your’s truly found himself slightly embarrassed, deliberately shuffling his feet and coughing extensively as he took notes as to avoid frightening the locals he encountered in their neighbourhood.

Villagers tend to express greater interest and pose more questions when the researchers mark their observations in a notebook as opposed to using a digital device. For the outsiders those taking notes on paper are clearly present, in situ, observing and documenting their surroundings. Ethnographers working with a smartphone are more at ease; it is a familiar activity to see. One potential explanation for this is that smartphones are used as a means of communication with the outside world. Unlike the notetakers visibly engaged with their immediate environment the smartphone user appears to be mentally elsewhere. 

Kortan, Enis. 1997/2005. Turkish Architecture and Urbanism through the Eyes of Le Corbusier. Third Edition. Istanbul: Boyut Kitaplari.