虚拟民族志:田野、方法与伦理

Virtual Ethnography:The field,approach and ethics

互联网及其衍生的社会文化现象给人类学带来了新的研究课题,同时也使传统的研究方法面临新的挑战。在对经典的民族志方法予以调整和改进的基础上,虚拟民族志作为致力于以独特方式理解互联网及相关现象的方法而产生。本文从互联网与文化之间的关联出发,从虚拟田野的定位、在线参与观察的实现、线上田野作业向线下的拓展以及研究伦理几个方面,对虚拟民族志的相关问题予以梳理和评述。文章最后提出,重新思考传统并与之保持对话依然是虚拟民族志发展的重要路径。

The internet and its derived social and cultural phenomena not only have brought a new research topic to anthropology,but also have challenged the traditional anthropological research methods.Based on the adaption and improvement of traditional ethnographic approach to fit the new research setting,virtual ethnography was created to comprehend the internet and its related phenomena.Starting from the articulation of the association between the internet and the culture,the author reviews and discusses several issues important to virtual ethnography,such as the definition of virtual field,the realization of online participant observation,the expansion of online to offline fieldwork,and research ethics.Finally,the author argues that reflecting the tradition as well as maintaining the dialogue with tradition is an important approach for the further development of virtual ethnography.