Content, progress and pedagogy of the module

Use a combination of digital methods (data harvesting, computational analysis and visualization) and online ethnography to map e.g. debates, user cultures, public protest, etc. around new technologies. This module is anchored in the Research group of Techno-Anthropology and Participation, Department of Sustainability and Planning.

Learning objectives

Knowledge

• describe recent developments in the use of ethnographic, digital and computational methods for anthropological analysis.
• outline positions within anthropology and philosophy of sciences with relevance to the combination of quantitative and qualitative methods in ethnography.
• explain possibilities and challenges in relation to integrating digital methods in the tradition of anthropological fieldwork.

Skills

• integrate ethnographic, digital and computer-mediated methods in a concrete anthropological project design.
• carry out fieldwork using online and offline methods to generate a body of data material for techno-anthropological analysis.
• explicate, demonstrate and discuss the assumptions and biases in the analogue and digital techniques used.
• identify ethical challenges in relation to working with digital and computational methods in an anthropological context.

Competences

• formulate a research question and design a protocol that specifies how a combination of digital, computational and qualitative methods can be used to answer it.
• code and analyze a complex body of empirical data.
• conduct a critical evaluation of the role that digital and computational methods can – and cannot – play in anthropological fieldwork.
• evaluate how techno-anthropological theories and different methods can help create new practices in technological research and development.
• develop well justified ethical competences.
• take responsibility for own professional development and specialisation.

Type of instruction

Project module. Please refer to §17 of the curriculum about the structure and content of the programme.

Exam

Exams