Virtual reality is no longer an issue that we can avoid or ignore. It is an essential part of our experience, influencing cultures and individuals all over the world. This book presents a collection of ethnographic research in the virtual world of Second Life, and can be seen as an attempt to discover the challenges and limits of social anthropological research with an avatar in virtual cultures and environments. The contributions in this book demonstrate that the development of «digital codes» has meanwhile gone so far that anthropologists have started to conduct fieldwork inside digital user-generated worlds. This volume investigates the challenges facing a reality that is strongly and maybe irrevocably entangled with virtual reality. This development holds disadvantages and dangers but advantages as well - such as freedom of expressions for minority groups, social online activists, religious communities or artists. All research is based on qualitative methods, with group and single interview situations and participant observation over a period of between three and ten months.
This collection of essays explores a wide range of topics current in the field of ethnographic research, including the virtual world of Second Life for virtual cultures and environments, assessment of «digital codes» as a vehicle for demonstrating the development inside user-generated worlds. Authors reflect critically on challenges facing a reality entangled with virtual reality. The results of these investigations will benefit readers, from early career researchers to experienced scholars, whose interests not only intersect with the topics presented here but which also encompass broad methodological issues affecting freedom of expressions.
