’Being there’, phone in hand: Thick presence and anthropological fieldwork with media

Nina Grønlykke Mollerup

’Being there’, phone in hand: Thick presence and anthropological fieldwork with media

Abstract

In this article, I explore the notion of presence, especially as it pertains to anthropological notions of ‘being there’ and argue that studying with media significantly influences our physical presence as we are able to bring distant and not so distant places into our fields. Anthropology was founded on the notion of ‘being there’ and it is still a crucial claim to knowledge for anthropologists. Digital anthropology has brought new challenges to the concept of ‘being there’, giving increasing depth to the arguments that physical presence is not a prerequisite for ethnographic studies or even for ‘being there’. In order to discuss how media might influence our presence in the field, I develop the notion of thick presence. I take a point of departure in my anthropological fieldwork with information activists and journalists in Egypt in 2012 and 2013 at the height of the revolutionary uprising.

Original language	English
Publisher	EASA Media Anthropology Network E-Seminar Series
Volume	59
Number of pages	10
Publication status	Published - 7 Feb 2017
Externally published	Yes

Keywords

Faculty of Humanities

Access to Document

http://www.media-anthropology.net/index.php/e-seminarsLicence: CC BY-NC-SA

Cite this

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title = "{\textquoteright}Being there{\textquoteright}, phone in hand: Thick presence and anthropological fieldwork with media",

abstract = "In this article, I explore the notion of presence, especially as it pertains to anthropological notions of {\textquoteleft}being there{\textquoteright} and argue that studying with media significantly influences our physical presence as we are able to bring distant and not so distant places into our fields. Anthropology was founded on the notion of {\textquoteleft}being there{\textquoteright} and it is still a crucial claim to knowledge for anthropologists. Digital anthropology has brought new challenges to the concept of {\textquoteleft}being there{\textquoteright}, giving increasing depth to the arguments that physical presence is not a prerequisite for ethnographic studies or even for {\textquoteleft}being there{\textquoteright}. In order to discuss how media might influence our presence in the field, I develop the notion of thick presence. I take a point of departure in my anthropological fieldwork with information activists and journalists in Egypt in 2012 and 2013 at the height of the revolutionary uprising. ",

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