Estado de escape: una propuesta para estudiar "lo virtual en la vida real en mundos virtuales"

José Francisco Zampieron

doi:10.24215/23143924e071

Authors

José Francisco Zampieron Facultad de Filosofía y Humanidades, Universidad Nacional de Córdoba.

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.24215/23143924e071

Keywords:

digital ethnography, phenomenology, immersion, methodology, virtual worlds

Abstract

This paper intends to discuss a methodological proposal based on phenomenology and its capacity for ethnographic explanation of what I am going to describe an "escape state": a conceptual framework of analysis based on the epistemological perspective of the liminoid as perception and experience. The bibliographic articulation on the current state of digital ethnography and the use of classic anthropology texts will have great weight going through the article, given its theoretical-methodological premise. In this sense, by developing an ethnographic reflection of my experiences in Roblox, SecondLife and, more especially, VRChat, I am going to elaborate the idea of an "escape state" as the phenomenological step from “back and forth” of the perception of materials and materiality, to finally, at the end of the article, evaluate it as an analytical framework using examples of ethnographic experiences I had in VRChat, in an effort to indicate a path towards understanding the infrastructural, contextual and content realities that surround personal and communal relationships in virtual/digital worlds. Thus, I will work the qualitative and dense description of the ethnographic experiences during the exploratory field developed from april 2021 to february 2022 using storytelling elements such as explanation and remembrance of events, contexts and conversations that I had with interlocutors, based on my field notes and field diary, in addition to recorded photographic material (printscreens).

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