[-empyre-] ethnography (brock Dubbels, message 6)

[Nicky Donald]

Whoa. We are risking a long history of ludo-ethnography here. What are you
asking Captain Dubbels for- all the methodologies that haven't appeared in
this discussion or just ones from ethnography that are new to games research
as a whole? The former is millennia long, the latter probably very short.

Obviously, it depends also on your intent. As a researcher developing
game-like experiences, I have phenomenology and user-led design on my pizza.
If you're cataloguing subcultures you'll need something different, as will a
different person working alongside either of us. Far be it from me to
recommend anything for your work... I'm just saying this could be long
reply.

Oh and punk was a bourgeois, market-led conceit to sell Malcolm and
Vivienne's clothes and maybe get kids to buy the occasional record with
their pocket money. It was subverted by the consumers, who, with the
swag(merchandise) they bought created a subculture, a new ethnic identity, a
weltanschauung, a virtual world where insult and dissent were venerated,
nuclear apocalypse was imminent and money grew in post offices. The US
experience was different again, but it was still subversion by (largely
young white male) consumers of the goods and technologies available to them.


Loving the debate

NickyD

On 6 Dec 2010 14:10, "Mathias Fuchs" <fuchs.mathias at googlemail.com> wrote:

Hi Brock,

when we enter the gamers' tribal territories and watch groups when
speedrunning, cheating or hacking, observe their behaviour, compare it to
other media users, and write about it, we do some kind of ethnographic
research, don't we? As ethnographers do, we also try to find out how our
observations might be biased by being part of the community. Your
observations on punk are different to observation by non-punk punk-
researchers and you are aware of having played the guitar when you make
statements on the movement. It is quite a challenge for the research that
most of us are active players and have preferences, hate certain games and
like others. This is not a methodological problem as long as we are aware of
our biased view.
Do you have suggestions for ethnographic methods that would be useful and
have not been explored in games research?

Mathias
ludicinterfaces.com

Brock wrote:

> I am not sure I see much from anthropology are ethnographic methods to
> operationalize any of this talk.
>


-- 
Mathias Fuchs
   European Masters in Ludic Interfaces
http://ludicinterfaces.com
   Programme Leader MA Creative Technology and MSc Creative Games
   Salford University, School of Art&    Design, Manchester M3 6EQ
http://creativegames.org.uk/
   mobile: +44 7949 60 9893

residential address: Ratiborstrasse 18
   10999 Berlin, Germany
   phone: +49 3092109654
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