Coming of Age in Secondlife – Chapter 3
Sep 20th, 2008 by nmsliwa
Chapter three primarily discusses anthropology and ethnography in the virtual world of Secondlife. Author Tom Boellstroff discusses his personal opinions and theories about anthropology in a virtual world as well as generally accepted beliefs and other anthropologist’s studies. Rather than summarize the chapter in slightly more detail, as I have in the past, I would like to spend this journal about Chapter three analyzing two questions which were raised by the reading and of which I couldn’t help but speculate about while reading. I feel that discovering my own opinion about these questions will ultimately be more important to my research in Secondlife than simply regurgitating information in an effort to prove that I in fact read the chapter.
The first point that Boellstroff’s reading considers which I sought to think about further is the relationship between the virtual and actual world. In Chapter three Boellstorff says, “Assuming that the significance of virtual world’s hinges on continuity with the actual world oversimplifies the referential relationship between actual and virtual” (p.62). After reading these lines I began to try to formulate in my mind what I believe the relationship is between the virtual and actual world. Obviously there must be some relationship between these two different worlds since the virtual person is dependent upon the existence of a person in the actual world. However, I’m not sure that how strong of a correlation there is since the actual person is able to alter the appearance of an avatar as well as the avatar’s job, personality, goals, etc. I’m not sure that the correlation between these two vastly different (but often sharing similar traits) worlds can be summed up after only three weeks of research. It seems as tho Boellstorff and anthropologists like him continue to ask questions like this as they get further and further into their research.
The second point which I began pondering is the relationship between researcher and researched. My group for the Secondlife research in the interview group. Unlike the auto-ethnography group my avatar is not the subject of my Secondlife studies. However, I realized while reading Chapter three that my avatar and performance in Secondlife in implicitly related to the interviewing process. Since my avatar is the one asking the questions and approaching other avatars it is impossible for me to remain outside the researching process. In this way I have to wonder if there is ever a way for the researcher to totally remove himself or herself from an anthropologic study. As of now, I am inclined to believe the answer is ‘no’.