African wild dogs: In addition to educating individual avatars, as well as actual people, about their virtual and actual privacy

Harbin ethnography:


... For all of us, in general, to learn privacy and anonymizing practices - vis-a-vis language as well as computer languages - as a form of ethics, is part of what I hope to educate for in relation to actual and virtual Harbin ethnographic practices.

In addition to educating individual avatars, as well as people, about practices for their virtual and actual privacy, as ethnographic practice, I not only will combine identities, but also narratives, to further protect their identities, in the course of writing this ethnography, and potentially co-generating virtual Harbin. While avatars' self-selected names may obviously have particular meaning and significance in relation to end users' generative, or emerging, identities, especially vis-a-vis virtual Harbin - if an end user has created an avatar to explore this 'place' – I will change such names, too, as ethnographic, ethical practice, to protect identities here, too. As a consequence of such practices, it will be nearly impossible to ever know for certain the identities of any avatar or individual entity in this book (Boellstorff 2008: 83).

The advantages of protecting people's privacy for ethnography might include ongoing access to information and narratives, of increasing sensitivity, fascination and edifying qualities. ...











(http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2011/01/african-wild-dogs-n-addition-to.html - January 27, 2011)