[Reader-list] Call for Abstracts: Selfies from the field @ Internet Researchers' Conference 2017

[sumandro]

Call for Abstracts

#SelfiesFromTheField

Internet Researchers' Conference 2017

International Institute of Information Technology- Bangalore

March 3rd -5th 2017

Borrowing from the third provocation at IRC17, we are organising a
session on research methods to study, document and analyse work on
Internet mediated interactions (IMI). We define Internet Mediated
Interactions (IMI) as any interaction enabled by the Internet. Such
interactions can take place across diverse platforms or devices such as
mobile phones, tablets, or computers. For example, booking a cab through
Ola/ Uber is an IMI; virtual games are IMIs; collaborative document
editing is an IMI, etc. With the definition of an ethnographic field
site evolving over the past few years to include the Internet and
virtual worlds, ethnographic research in IMI would involve studies of
the people designing and interacting over such platforms. We seek
participation from early-career researchers and students currently
pursuing research, or with experience in studying IMI.

Please submit a 250-300 word abstract about your work, addressing any of
the below mentioned, or related themes. Accepted abstracts will be
required to make a short presentation. Authors are not required to send
full papers.

The objective of the session is to share experiences of grappling with
challenges which emerge in doing IMI centred research. This session will
explore the following two sub-themes:

1. Access to participants: Doing a study of IMIs poses challenges such
as identifying interactions as IMI; or gaining entry into specific
Internet-mediated spaces (which may or may not be openly accessible).

2. Doing methods: Fieldwork raises questions of what constitutes doing
methods. While conversations about methods often end prior to physically
conducting fieldwork, doing methods can cause tension with text-book
constructs of methods.

The talks and discussions of this session will be synthesised for the
working paper (for IRC17). In the working paper, we hope to develop
working definitions for key ideas identified during the session (an idea
inspired from Boellstorff, 2012). This working paper will act as a
starting point for future publications.

To submit your abstract and for any further clarifications, please write
to kavitha.narayanan at iiitb.ac.in<mailto:kavitha.narayanan at iiitb.ac.in>

Last date for submission of abstracts: 5th February 2017

Announcement of selected abstracts: 12th February 2017

Limited travel and accommodation support for out-station participants
will be provided by IRC 17.

For more details, please visit: http://cis-india.org/raw/irc17-call

Session Organisers: Kavitha Narayanan, Oindrila Matilal & Onkar Hoysala
(Centre for IT and Public Policy, International Institute of Information
Technology - Bangalore<http://citapp.iiitb.ac.in/>)