Full Description
Using an assemblage approach to study how Muslim women in Norrebro, Denmark use their phones, Karen Waltorp examines how social media complicates the divide between public and private in relation to a group of people who find this distinction of utmost significance. Building on years of ethnographic fieldwork, Waltorp's ethnography reflects the trust and creativity of her relationships with these women which in turn open up nuanced discussions about both the subject at hand and best practice in conducting anthropological research. Combining rich ethnography with theoretical contextualization, Waltorp's book alternates between ethnography and analysis to illuminate a thoroughly modern community, and reveals the capacity of image-making technology to function as an infrastructure for seeing, thinking and engaging in fieldwork as an anthropologists. Waltorp identifies a series of important issues around anthropological approaches to new media, contributing to new debates around the anthropology of automation, data and self-tracking.
Contents
Foreword by Sarah Pink. Acknowledgements. Introduction: al-Harakat. Image List. Playlist. A. Smartphone Affordances of the Smartphone. Touch and Crucial Connectivity. Secrets and Smartphones a. Cyborg Cyborg Ethics for an Accountable Multi-modal Anthropology. Kitab al-Manazir and Cyborg Optics. Parallax as a Harakat Move and a Speaking Nearby B. Hanan al-Noerrebro: Affections for the Neighborhood An Urban Habitat - a Typical Blaagaarden Girl. The Ghetto, the Square, Behind the Curtain. Facebook Flirt: The Stabbing of Taher b. What's in a Field Enacting Hybridity. Harakat and Composite Habitus. Perceiving Affordances C. Hijab, Desire, Social Control Entanglements of Free Speech and Veiled Women. 'Playing with the Scarf is Playing with Our Religion'. Modest/Desire. Orientalism, Freedom, State Control. Smartphone as Valve and Part-revolution? Freedom/Choice. So Muslim Women Need Saving? D. Dreams and the Imaginal realm - Alam al-Mîthal The Kidnapping. Moral/Laws. Sab'r enacted and shared in social media. Images and Mirrors. Imaginal realm and Virtuality. Composite Habitus. The Flow of (Mirror) Images and Future-Making. Bibliography. Index.
