The theme of the third edition will be “Networked Together“. In particular, the third edition proposes to reflect on the participatory research design in digital ethnography. In many respects, the massive diffusion of Internet and the many forms of digital, or web-learning reshapes ‘traditional’ hierarchies in education, and leads to complex restructuring of teaching and learning claiming. At the same time, and partly for the same reasons, we may notice an increase of possibilities for the subjects of educational and social research to be involved in the ethnographic investigation as active co-producers of data, even as co-ethnographers in many stages of the ethnographic investigation (collecting, analyzing, writing ethnography, etc.). This involvement implies the association among ethnographer(s)-subject(s) that permit them to be networked together during the investigation in such way to reshape the sense of ‘being there’, and multiplies the presence of the ethnographer(s). The emergence of that association raises ‘new’ and ‘old’ questions: How to involve humans and nonhumans in online ethnography? In which ways, the involvement reshapes the circulation of knowledge (hierarchical vs horizontal forms of circulation)? What is the ‘status’ of this ethnographical knowledge? Public or private? What is made ‘public’ (open worldwide), or what remains ‘private’ knowledge in those researches? What is the ‘ethical’ positioning of the researcher in these associations?

The third edition invites paper proposals that may explore the development and consolidation of this association and that reflect on the effects of this association for the production, circulation, and validation of the emerging knowledge. The discussion on these issues may contribute to enhance the design of participatory research in digital ethnography, and also to understand the many ways of designing digital ethnography to promote active participations to ethnographic investigation of educational dynamics.

Keynote Speaker

Attila Bruni,

University of Trento,

Past President of the Italian Association for Science & Technology Studies (STS-Italia)