The Digital Identity of the Ethnographer.

Abstract

In this article, We expose the epistemological and methodological challenges posed to ethnographers by social worlds where the modalities of articulation between online and offline sociability’s are not unanimous among social actors, to the point of generating controversies. In this type of field, characterized by a “dynamic multiplicity”, the interactional logics are contradictory and shifting, which the ethnographer must take into account when carrying out his investigation. Taking as an example my field in the French National Assembly between 2007 and 2019, I show that the investigator wins by acting in the same way as those he studies, by adopting a reflexive posture with regard to its “digital identity” and by using this to develop strategies intended to circumvent the rigidities that certain rules of local sociability impose on its investigations. More broadly, this article intends to make students and researchers aware of the need to pay close attention to their own digital practices when engaging in fieldwork, whether it concerns the digital question or not, as it is likely that 'they will influence the investigation.