In this fishbowl session, we propose to debate the AoIR’s theme for 2023, “revolution”, from its connection to ways of knowing, research and methods. By starting this conversation with five digital ethnographers, we are going to discuss, with theories and practices, what ethnography is, does and promises for the future once the “digital” is added to it not as an inevitable move for the method, but as an opportunity that welcome problematization and inquiries in face of our works and the experiences shared by the AoIR community attending the session.

We are inspired by the response that sociologist and ethnographer Mario Small gave to an issue on digital ethnography organized by Jessa Lingel and Jeff Lane published last year. In an afterwards comment he states that “Digital ethnography, if the researchers are up to it, will be the site of the most important new social theory.” (Small, 2022). We understand this bold affirmation in two ways. First, if when looking from a “digital” standpoint, the material world looks different (Rosa, 2022), which new expressions of the “social” can be known through digital ethnography when instead of accepting the current “social” theories, we are also open to reimagine its configurations and possibilities (Latour, 2005)? Secondly, in “...embrac[ing] digital ethnographies that retain the inconveniences of ethnography: of meeting people where they’re at, doing the things that participants are doing on their time and not on our own...” (Lane & Lingel, 2022,p. 322) what is that that the “digital” adds not only to traditional ethnography but also to our understanding of social phenomena by including technology design and new dynamics and sociabilities in the explanation (Ferrari, 2022; Ross Arguedas, 2022)?

Open to attendants’ participation and contributions, this session is designed to be interactive, inclusive, and intellectually engaging.