Anthropology with algorithms?

Abstract

Based on a study of more than twenty thousand reports on drug experiences from the online drug education portal Erowid, this article argues that the integration of ethnographic methods with computational methods and digital data analysis, including so-called big data, is not only possible but highly rewarding. The analysis of ‘natively’ digital data from sites like Facebook, message boards, and web archives can offer glimpses into worlds of practice and meaning, introduce anthropologists to user-based semantics, provide greater context, help to re-evaluate hypotheses, facilitate access to difficult fields, and point to new research questions. This case study generated important insights into the social and political entanglements of drug consumption, drug phenomenology, and harm reduction. We argue here that deep ethnographic knowledge, what we term ‘field groundedness’, is indispensable for thoroughly making sense of the resulting visualizations, and we advocate for seeing ethnography and digital data analysis in a symbiotic relationship.

Synthetic Cathinones—Prevalence and Motivations for Use

“…Recently, more advanced techniques, such as social network analyis and analytic tools developed for 'big data', have been introduced from the related field of digital ethnography. For example, using @ 13 November 2017 14 20,000+ drug experiences reported on Erowid, Krieg et al (2017) argue for the integration of computational and digital data analyses with traditional ethnographic methods. The authors state that their study provided useful insights into the interconnections and relationships across several domains, e.g.…”

“…drug phenomenology, consumption and harm reduction. This deeper understanding at the collective individual level helps researchers to make sense of developments at the wider social level (Kozinets, 2015;Krieg et al, 2017). Triangulation of information is important as this makes research findings more robust, reliable and generalisable.…”

Chemical Creativity

“…, for example, examined the narratives of microdosers in Amsterdam, and followed their collaborative self-experiments over time. Some members of our team have also reviewed reports on microdosing in popular media and online, a form of "virtual ethnography" (see Krieg et al 2017;Hupli et al 2019). A second way of understanding the effects of microdosing is through the gathering of data that can aggregate users' experiences; such data has been generated through collaborations between researchers and users, and is reviewed here.…”

Digital era drug surveillance: Quo vadis, Australia?

“…Researchers in the drugs field have turned to the internet for data, but we argue that many researchers are not thinking deeply enough about the internet as a source of data [37]. The real value of internet data, however, may not be that it gives access to respondents, nor that it allows researchers to overcome the small-sample limitations of their studies, but rather that it provides access to new modes of human interaction, new data that cannot be obtained by surveys [36,39]. The real value of internet data, however, may not be that it gives access to respondents, nor that it allows researchers to overcome the small-sample limitations of their studies, but rather that it provides access to new modes of human interaction, new data that cannot be obtained by surveys [36,39].…”

“…For many, the internet is seen (not incorrectly) as a tool enabling access to larger numbers of respondents for conventional surveys or to hidden populations not otherwise accessible [38]. The real value of internet data, however, may not be that it gives access to respondents, nor that it allows researchers to overcome the small-sample limitations of their studies, but rather that it provides access to new modes of human interaction, new data that cannot be obtained by surveys [36,39]. We feel that researchers in the drugs field are only just beginning to explore these avenues in the depth required.…”