Questioning+a+Text

__**What is the text about – empirically?**__ //What phenomenon is drawn out in the text? A social process; a cultural and political-economic shift; a cultural “infrastructure;” an emergent assemblage of science-culture-technology-economics?//

The book is primarily about a social process. Namely, it explores the early years of Second Life where the community began forming itself. It chronicles the ways in which humanity is defined through this virtual world, as well as the ways in which new cultural and economic entities were created within the medium of cyberspace.

//Where is this phenomenon located – in a neighborhood, in a country, in “Western Culture,” in a globalizing economy?//

The phenomenon itself is simultaneously located in many different spaces. First, it is located in cyberspace where Second Life as a medium is able to take shape. Second, it exists in the 'players' themselves in that they are sites of social and cultural transformation as they navigate cyberspace. Third, it exists in the technology that enables Second Life to exist in that the interface giving access to the medium influences the ways in which the medium can be experienced.

//What historical trajectory is the phenomenon situated within? What, in the chronology provided or implied, is emphasized – the role of political or economic forces, the role of certain individuals or social groups? What does the chronology leave out or discount?//

The book locates itself within a particular historical trajectory that emphasizes the potentials of human creativity in the fashioning of everyday life. As such, it emphasizes the role of //techne//, the human ability to improvise and create phenomena through interaction with technology. In effect, the book takes for granted the reality of Second Life as it exists in order to attempt to understand how culture and humanity are configured within it, but it leaves behing larger questions of why did Second Life end up looking the way it did at the time of the study.

//What scale(s) are focused on – nano (i.e. the level of language), micro, meso, macro? What empirical material is developed at each scale?//

The book focuses largely on the micro scale. It examines the ways in which individual people are making sense of, and reshaping, the world of Second Life in its early years. The everyday practices of players are put in relief. Boellstorff focuses on such events as the ways in which people are able to travel around the world, the ways in which meetings are organized and enacted, the importance of creativity and building within Second Life, etc. However, it also briefly dwells upon the meso level when it examines the ways in which Linden Labs (Second Life's designer) responds to community issues such as griefing and/or economic realities. It also briefly dwells upon the macro scale when it argues that Second Life is part of a larger historical trend toward the Age of Techne where creativity becomes an end as well as the means by which existence can be enacted.

//Who are the players in the text and what are their relations? Does the text trace how these relations have changed across time – because of new technologies, for example?//

The two main groups of players in the text are Linden Labs, the designers of Second Life, and the players themselves. The text itself is more concerned with creation and reproduction than change. It does no so much follow the transformation of social practices as much as map out the ways in which new practices appear and the ways in which reality is held together within a virtual medium.

//What is the temporal frame in which players play? In the wake of a particular policy, disaster or other significant “event?” In the general climate of the Reagan era, or of “after-the-Wall” globalization?//

The text is situated in the early years of the development of the Internet. As such, the players find themselves acting within a period where the Internet and cyberspace were understoof – both theoretically and popularly – as liberating spaces of possibilities. As such, Second Life finds itself enmeshed within the utopian discourses present at the time in which it appeared.

//What cultures and social structures are in play in the text?//

Because the text attempts to understand Second Life in its own terms, it is largely concerned with the cultural entities that appear within Second Life as opposed to the ways in which cultural and practices are translated across media. In effect, the text is attempting to understand the 'Second Life culture' as it exists within the medium of cyberspace from an ontological perspective. There is, however, an attention paid to particular social structures such as the role of creativity in establishling renown notoriety.

//What kinds of practices are described in the text? Are players shown to be embedded in structural contradictions or double-binds?//

<span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">The text is mainly concerned with creative practices; it is concerned with the role and importance of human creativity in enabling a social interaction. While never dwelling explicitly on contradictions or double-binds, the text does imply that, within Second Life, creativity is heavily embedded within a matrix of production. As such, players who are creative also are players who are productive in that newness of design is valued above the reproduction of sameness.

<span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">//How are science and technology implicated in the phenomenon described?//

<span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">The text itself is more concerned with technology than science. In Boellstroff's narrative, technological interactions are a crucial feature to what Boellstroff calls the Age of Techne. Within this framework, technology becomes the means by which human creativity is enabled as both a means and an end.

<span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">//What structural conditions– technological, legal and legislative, political, cultural – are highlighted, and how are they shown to have shaped the phenomenon described in this text?//

<span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">Boellstroff mainly is concerned with the technological. Technology here becomes the backdrop within which Boellstroff's study is conducted. However, the text also elaborates upon the role of the wider neoliberal discourses in shaping the ways in which reality is constructed within Second Life. For example, production (under the guise of creativity) is a salient feature of Second Life. Productivism is implied to be the form by which human creativity and emancipation is enabled within cyberspace. In order to be creative and an active agent within Second Life, players must constantly be enmeshed within a circulatory system of virtual goods (clothing for the avatar, construction material for their in-game dwellings, land to be able to build in the first place, etc.). As such, though Boellstorff mostly concentrates on the shape these things take within Second Life as opposed to the translations occuring between media, the reality constructed within Second Life can be said to be highly reflective of the dominant discourses of production and ownership within which it is enmeshed.

<span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">//How – at different scales, in different ways – is power shown to operate? Is there evidence of power operating through language, “discipline,” social hierarchies, bureaucratic function, economics, etc?//

<span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">In the text, power flows largely along economic lines. For example, the individuals with the most notoriety and prestige are the ones able to create large quantities of desirable goods. However, because Second Life is administered along traditional understandings of a service economy, Second Life as a product creates a division between supplier and customer. However, this particular division becomes slanted towards the supplier when intellectual property laws come into play. Players do not own Second Life in any way, nor do they own whatever is created within it. Sole ownership resides with Linden Labs, Second Life's creators. As such, in a quasi-reproduction of traditonal Marxist conceptualization, the product of the players' labor becomes appropriated by those who make available the means by which creativity can be enacted and deployed.

<span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">//Does the text provide comparative or systems level perspectives? In other words, is the particular phenomenon described in this text situated in relation to similar phenomenon in other settings? Is this particular phenomena situated within global structures and processes?//

<span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">Largely, the text is concerned with understanding Second Life in its own terms. However, the text also situated the event more broadly within discourses of cyberspace, innovation, and property. Temporally, the text situates the study within utopian and libertarian conceptualizations of cyberspace present toward the end of the 1990s and beginning of the 2000s. The text also situates Second Life firmly within dominant understandings of innovation and property as desirable and good in and of themselves. However, the text is careful to avoid fetishizing these concepts. Rather, it places them in context as part of a larger global trend developing with information technologies that Boellstroff calls the Age of Techne where human creative acts become an end in themselves as well as the means by which cyberculture is reproduced.

<span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">__**What is the text about – conceptually?**__ <span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">//Is the goal to verify, challenge or extend prior theoretical claims?//

<span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">According to Boellstroff, the text's goal is not one of verification but discovery. The text's main goal is to understands the ways in which cyberspace and virtual worlds are not an 'other' within which humanity may exist but rather are an integral part of what it means to be human. Therefore, the text also challenges dominant conceptualization of cyberspace as 'unreal' and meaningless.

<span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">//What is the main conceptual argument or theoretical claim of the text? Is it performed, rendered explicit or both?//

<span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">The main conceptual argument of the text is that the advent of information technologies has brought about what Boellstroff calls the Age of Techne where human acts of creativity become both what must be produced and reproduced as well as the means by which such production and reproduction can be enacted. The argument is both performed and explicitly rendered. It is performed by a discussion of methodology which stresses the notion that virtual worlds can be understood in their own terms as opposed to being always dependent on an outside referent. As such, virtual worlds force upon us new methodological approaches in order to be studied. Studying cyberspace forced Boellstroff to innovate and produce a new methodological orientation in order to fully interact with the medium and the persons inhabiting it. Also, the text is quite explicit about its theoretical argument which is frequently repreatedly throughout the text.

<span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">//What ancillary concepts are developed to articulate the conceptual argument?//

<span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">Age of Techne: historical moment where human acts of creativity become both ends and means when enacted through technology. <span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">Actual Worlds: Reconceptualizing virtual worlds as actual ones refocuses the emphasis away from the real/unreal dichotomy by turning its attention to the actions posed by human actors within cyberspace. <span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">Creationist Capitalism: a mode of capiutalism where labor is understood in terms of creativity so that production is understood in terms of creation: self-fulfilment becomes a means of production.

<span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">//How is empirical material used to support or build the conceptual argument?//

<span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">The empirical material is utilized to support an ontological argument. Namely, the text examines how the various practices coallesce in order to create a dynamically stable known as Second Life. While the text acknowledges that the practices existing within Second Life have not, are not, and will not always remain the same, the text seesk out their underlying assumptions in order to give readers an idea of what practice looks like within Second Life.

<span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">//How robust is the main conceptual argument of the text? On what grounds could it be challenged?//

<span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">As far as taking Second Life in its own terms, the text's conceptual argument stands on its own. The text provides a myriad of examples to demonstrate how human acts of creativity become the foundation for all interactional events within the virtual world. However, the argument can be challenged by questioning the ways in which Second Life came to be in the first place. Such questions would lead a researcher away from the cyberspatial environment and towards the wider world of publication and design. While Boellstroff argues that studying virtual worlds in their own terms does not mean that virtual worlds should or can be conceptualized as closed system, he nonetheless focuses all of his attention to an internal account of Second Life.

<span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">//How could the empirical material provided support conceptual arguments other than those built in the text?//

<span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">Without the text's political economic framework, the empirical material could be used to support the libertarian and utopian views of cyberspace that were dominant at the time when Boellstroff conducted his research.

<span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">__**Modes of inquiry?**__ <span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">//What theoretical edifice provides the (perhaps haunting – i.e. non-explicit) backdrop to the text?//

<span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">The text utilizes a political economic background heavily influenced by Marx and current critiques of neoliberalism. It relies heavily, though in modified forms, on such concepts as production, ownership, labor and innovation.

<span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">//What assumptions appear to have shaped the inquiry? Does the author assume that individuals are rational actors, for example, or assume that the unconscious is a force to be dealt with? Does the author assume that the “goal” of society is (functional) stability? Does the author assume that what is most interesting occurs with regularity, or is she interested in the incidental and deviant?//

<span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">Because the text aims to understand virtual worlds in their own terms, it tends to favor regularity and stability over deviance and exception. However, the text does not assume that stability is the end goal of all forms of social organization. Rather, this focus comes from the implicit work being done in order to construct an ontology of Second Life. The text also assumes that productivism is a driving force both within and outside of cyberspace. Finally, the text assumes that virtual worlds are defined primarily through human acts of creativity, which somewhat excludes the structural role played by information technologies in enabling and disabling such acts.

<span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">//What kinds of data (ethnographic, experimental, statistical, etc.) are used in the text, and how were they obtained?//

<span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">The data primarily is ethnographic in nature, but the text also contains historical material. The ethnographic data were obtained through participant observation within Second Life and through interviews (formal and informal) and focus groups also conducted within Second Life, while the historical material primarily consists of analyses of secondary sources but also from personal experience and involvement with early incarnations of virtual worlds and cyberspace. However, Boellstroff says that the primary method of data collection was participant observation.

<span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">//If interviews were conducted, what kinds of questions were asked? What does the author seem to have learned from the interviews?//

<span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">Most of the interview questions appear to fall within the realm of practice. Boellstroff appears to wish to understand what, how and why his interlocutors do certain things (building, griefing, etc.). Boellstroff appears to have learned how his interlocutors negotiate the divide between cyberspace and physical space.

<span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">//How was the data analyzed? If this is not explicit, what can be inferred?//

<span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">Boellstroff's methods chapter dwells on data analysis. He specifies that he did not want to focus on the sensational. Rather, his analysis revolved around uncovered the Bourdian habitus that resided within Second Life inhabitants. As such, his analysis revolves mainly around finding taken-for-granted moments and unpacking them.

<span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">//How are people, objects or ideas aggregated into groups or categories?//

<span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">Categories are aggregated mostly in terms of practice. While people are not categorized explicitly, it can be inferred that some people are 'creators' while others are 'consumers.' Similarly, objects often are described implicitly as facilitating such categorizations.

<span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">//What additional data would strengthen the text?//

<span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">Data on the ways in which practices are transformed as they travel from physical and cyberspatial media would strenghten Boellstroff's analysis. As it stands, Boellstroff's book focuses almost solely on the way practices are constructed and emerging within cyberspace.

<span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">__**Structure and performance?**__ <span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">//What is in the introduction? Does the introduction turn around unanswered questions – in other words, are we told how this text embodies a research project?//

<span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">The introduction tells us that it is important to find out exactly what is new about virtual worlds. As such, it fits into Boellstorff's larger ontological research project of understanding how humans always already are virtual.

<span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">//Where is theory in the text? Is the theoretical backdrop to the text explained, or assumed to be understood?//

<span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">Theory is intermingled with other parts of the text. Boellstroff does not explicitly divide theory and empirical data. Rather, the theory is found throughout the text in every chapter. The anthropological theory often is simply refered to and assumed to be understood while theories from other disciplines (such as game studies) are dwelled upon in more detail. However, there is a meta-progression throughout the book from empirical data to theory that culminates in Chapter 8 when Boellstorff ties in all of the previous chapters together through the use of political economic theory.

<span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">//What is the structure of the discourse in the text? What binaries recur in the text, or are conspicuously avoided?//

<span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">The text's discourse is structured around the everyday practices of Second Life inhabitants. Boellstorff explicitly addresses the subject of binaries by specifying that his original training as a linguist helps him appreciate how binaries always already are present within culture but are transformed as they migrate through different environments. As such, Boellstroff does not shy away from playing with binaries (such as creator/consumer, virtual/actual, online/offline). One example of Boellstorff playing with binaries is the way in which he opposes virtual to actual rather than the usual opposition to real.

<span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">//How is the historical trajectory delineated? Is there explicit chronological development?//

<span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">Besides the chapter that deliniates five specific histories there is little chronological development outside of brief recollections of empirical moments. Rather, the text is structured thematically as opposed to chronologically.

<span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">//How is the temporal context provided or evoked in the text?//

<span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">The temporal context mostly is given in the introduction where Boellstroff juxtaposes his study to other previous anthropological studies in order to explain the similarities between his work and those of his predecessors (such as Mead, Malinowski, Evans-Pritchard, etc.). This is partly resulting from Boellstroff's methodological choice of attempting to understand Second Life 'in its own terms' in order to identify how virtual worlds offer new forms of practice. As such, Boellstorff is not attempting to understand continuity but newness.

<span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">//How does the text specify the cultures and social structures in play in the text?//

<span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">Throughout the text, Boellstorff is constructing a 'culture' of Second Life. However, the early chapters mainly are designed in ways that enable readers to understand what everyday life is like within Second Life. It is not until Chapter 8 that Boellstorff brings everything together under the umbrella of political economy in order to understand how the everyday practices of Second Life inhabitants revolve around familiar neoliberal tropes. Before this chapter, life within Second Life almost appears the libertarian uptopia described by many early studies of cyberspace. However, Boellstorff explains that without the previous chapters it would have been impossible to understand how virtual worlds offer new configurations of neoliberalism.

<span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">//How are informant perspectives dealt with and integrated?//

<span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">As part of the text, Boellstorff provides lenghty exerpts from conversations that have happened during his residency in Second Life.

<span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">//How does the text draw out the implications of science and technology? At what level of detail are scientific and technological practices described?//

<span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">While Boellstorff does not address this issue at length, he is implicitly arguing that technology and practice cannot be separated. As such, the everyday practices described by Boellstorff cannot be differentiated from the technologies that enable them (because different technologies would imply different practices). As such, within Second Life, technology is practice, and practice is technology.

<span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">//How does the text provide in-depth detail – hopefully without losing readers?//

<span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">Boellstroff provides a glossary of populary Second Life terms at the end of the book. He also dwells into more detail on particular practices within the endnotes.

<span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">//What is the layout of the text? How does it move, from first page to last? Does it ask for other ways of reading? Does the layout perform an argument?//

<span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">The book is divided into three distinct sections that build upon one another. The first deals with the history of virtual worlds as well as the ways in which ethnography is appropriate (and must be modified) to their study. The second section contains Boellstorff's empirical material and is divided into particular recurring themes and the ways in which Second Life enables newness within these themes. The final section ties everything together by dwelling upon the political economy of Second Life. As such, readers unfamiliar with virtual worlds must follow the prescribed layout in order to fully comprehend Boellstorff's argument.

<span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">//What kinds of visuals are used, and to what effect?//

<span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">The text utilizes mainly screenshots from Second Life. It displays both images of the gameworld itself as well as images of the graphical user interface in order to provide readers with an idea of what is meant by 'virtual world.' In order to accentuate the 'actual' aspect of virtual world, Boellstorff interposes screenshots of other kinds of computer games for comparative purposes.

<span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">//What kind of material and analysis are in the footnotes?//

<span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">Roughly two kinds of material can be found in the endnotes: 1) references to further readings in order to situate the text among an ongoing academic conversation, and 2) extra details on particular practices within Second Life, often of a more technical nature.

<span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">//How is the criticism of the text performed? If through overt argumentation, who is the “opposition”?//

<span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">The text itself is a critical performance within the anthropology of cyberspace in particular and the study of cyberspace in general. As such, much of the text is an overt argument againsts traditional notions of cyberspace as 'unreal' or 'corrupted' by the influences of capitalism found in cognitive psychology as well as certain portions of the social studies of cyberspace.

<span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">//How does the text situate itself? In other words, how is reflexivity addressed, or not?//

<span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">Boellstorff address the fact that in cyberspace no one is truly native. As such, he says that he self-identified as a researcher in order to replicate the traditional sense of distinction between research and interlocutor. However, he also notes that throughout his research, he became a member of the culture to a degree that often is impossible offline. However, he notes that he does not attempt to provide a naturalistic aspect to his quotes by changing the fonts. Rather he goes against giving the appearance of 'raw data' to his material by incorporating it quasi-seemlessly into the text in order to represent the increased incorporation into the Second Life culture that he experienced.

<span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">__**Circulation?**__ <span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">//Who is the text written for? How are arguments and evidence in the text shaped to address particular audiences?//

<span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">The text primarily is written for anthropologists. As such, much of the argumentative style is reminiscent of traditional ethnographies: the text is written in the first person and provides lengthy descriptive passages. However, the text also is aimed at inhabitants of Second Life through its images and technical passages in the footnotes.

<span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">//What all audiences can you imagine for the text, given its empirical and conceptual scope?//

<span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">The early chapters could easily be aimed at lower-level undergraduate students. However, the final chapters would present this audience with some conceptual difficulties and are best geared towards upper-level undergraduate students and beyond. The text could also be aimed at Second Life players who would recognize much of their world within the pages of the text. The text's audience could also include game designers who wish to go beyond traditional models of virtual worlds design.

<span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">//What new knowledge does this text put into circulation? What does this text have to say that otherwise is not obvious?//

<span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">The text attempts to refocus the conversations surrounding virtual worlds and cyberspace away from the properties and characteristics of the technologies themselves by arguing for the 'actual' nature of virtual communities. As such, the everyday practices of the virtual world's inhabitants should be the focus of inquiry. He also argues against the neutrality of cyberspace as a medium by shying away from existing notions of cyberspace as a tabula rasa corrupted by capitalism. Rather, Boellstorff argues that capitalism is an intrinsic part of cyberspace that cannot easily be removed.

<span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">//How generalizable is the main argument? How does this text lay the groundwork for further research?//

<span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">While Boellstorff does specify that his text is composed of situated knowledge, its focus on what is new within virtual worlds (when compared to physical worlds) allows a certain level of generalization across platforms, media, etc. Boellstorff isn't so much arguing that Second Life itself transforms our practices as he is arguing that digital technologies in general have transformative properties. As such, the text ends with a conceptual framework that can be utilizes by subsequent scholars of virtual worlds and cyberspace.

<span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">//What kind of “action” is suggested by the main argument of the text?//

<span style="font-family: Times New Roman,serif;">Implicitly, the text argues for the continued participation in virtual worlds by attempting to locate them within the realm of 'normal' human experience.