IISES International Academic Conference, Prague

BECOMING ETHNOGRAPHER IN A DIGITAL WORLD: ASSEMBLAGES, ETHICS & RHIZOMATIC PRACTICES

TSOGHIK GRIGORYAN, ANNA HAKOBYAN

Abstract:

As digital technologies and algorithmic systems reshape everyday life, ethnographic methods must adapt to new, fluid terrains. This paper explores the ethical and methodological challenges of conducting ethnography in digitally mediated environments, where boundaries between the real and virtual, human and non-human, are increasingly blurred. Drawing on Deleuze and Guattari’s concepts of rhizome, becoming, and assemblage, the paper proposes a reconceptualization of ethnographic practice as non-linear, relational, and responsive to complexity. These ideas offer a framework for engaging with the shifting identities, structures, and ethical concerns of the digital age. By embracing rhizomatic thinking, this work invites ethnographers to reimagine the field as a dynamic assemblage of connections. It offers new pathways for reflexive, ethical, and theoretically grounded inquiry in networked spaces.

Keywords: Algorithms, Assemblage theory, Becoming, Deleuze and Guattari, Digital ethnography, Ethics, Methodology, Rhizome, Sociomateriality, Virtual environments