Paper Reading #19: Reflexivity in Digital Anthropology

Reference Information
Reflexivity in Digital Anthropology
Jennifer A. Rode
Presented at CHI 2011, May 7-12, 2011, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

Author Bios
Jennifer A. Rode is an Assistant Professor at Drexel's School of Information and a fellow in Digital Anthropology at University College London.Her dissertation research involved an ethnography to examine gender and domestic end-user programming for computer security.

Summary
Hypothesis
What are the contributions of anthropological ethnographies to the study of HCI? How can reflexive ehthnographies contribute?

Methods
The author referred to a wide body of other works to define the various forms of ethnography, especially with respect to HCI. She also determined which factors of modern anthropological ethnographies are missing form HCI works. She then discussed the different ways of producing an ethnography and design together.

Results
The voice of ethnographers is critical to make a complete ethnography. Without it, the understanding of the reasons behind a certain design are untold. Discussing rapport, participant-observation, and use of theory all aid in producing a reflexive ethnography, which can be more useful than positivistic works in design. Iterative ethnographies feature grounded theories and increase the users' interest in a design. However, all forms of ethnography have their individual merits.

Contents
HCI is slow to adopt changing practices in anthropology, especially digital anthropology, which is the comparative ethnography of the effects of techonology on how humans experience life. While there is work in HCI that is in that area, it is not reflexive. Reflexivity is one of two anthropological approaches and embraces intervention as a means of gathering data. The social-technological gap can be studied through reflexive works. The other approach is positivism, which celebrates data above all else. Ethnographies are useful to aid in the design process.

There are three main forms of writing ethnographies: realist, confessional, and impressionistic. The realist form is the only form that is commonly accepted in HCI papers. It bears several common factors with positivism and focuses the need for experimental authority, typical forms, the native's point of view, and interpretive omnipotence. The first indicates that the researcher minimizes reactivity to observed events. Typical forms include data and precision. The native's point of view implies that the ethnography is precisely in line with the views of those being observed. Interpretive omnipotence does not allow the observed to participate in the writing and does not allow for uncertainty of the information. Confessional ethnographies reveal the author's biases to address the inherent subjectivity of ethnographical work. Impressionistic ethnographies create a narrative of the observed's daily life. Confessional and impressionist ethnographies are norammly only found as a portion of a realist work. The author emphasized that none of the presented styles are lacking in rigor.

There are several elements of modern anthropological works that tend to be absent from CHI: discussing rapport, participant-observation, and use of theory. Rapport enables access to vaild data and the discussion of it is an explanation of experimental method. It helps to explain data, but is frequently considered to be understood implicitly, which detracts from the quality of the ethnography because the unknown is not enumerated. Participant-observation is being a part of the participant's daily life. It tests hypotheses through experiences rather than external validation and is not discussed first-hand in realist works. Use of theory entails using previous theories as a basis for newer ones that are only formed after working with a participant.

HCI ethnographies are usually formative, summative, or iterative. Formative ones focus on current technology to improve or produce new ones and are the most common in HCI. Summative ones evaluate technology after its design is finished. Iterative ones produce a design in stages, with participants actively aiding in its design both directly and indirectly. It requires a particularly lengthy period of time to produce.

Discussion
The author sought to analyze the contributions of anthropological ethnographies to the study of HCI. Her paper studied several HCI papers with various qualities and cited prominent papers in ethnographical work. Her work was sufficiently explanatory to let me believe in the validity of her findings that the three forms of ethnography are valid for CHI papers.

With as much as Rode frowned upon positivistic papers, I was a little surprised to see her conclusion at first. On second reading, though, I realized that she was merely suggesting that other forms of ethnographies should have merit too, not that she was advocating reflexivity over positivism. The tone of the paper as a whole led me to that first conclusion, so perhaps it would have been worth it to more clearly explain her stance before the final page.

As far as future work, iterative ethnographies could be useful in the design process, but it might be worth looking into to see if the extra time expended in iterative design results that much more of a better product. Since the type of paper the author proposed is very rare, more research should be done to see if it is a viable alterative.