This document discusses the project "The importance of being digital" which explores digital scholarship, methods, and cultures. It outlines the background and research lines of the project, which uses training events to gather empirical data. It then discusses different perspectives on digital scholarship and methods, including pragmatic, political, and epistemological views. It references debates around empirical social sciences and how digital data and devices are reshaping methods and assumptions. The document advocates cultivating "live methods" and notes that inventiveness emerges from the purposes methods are put to, not being intrinsic to methods themselves.

1. Performing
digital
ways
of
knowing:
epistemic
walks
with
methods-­‐as-­‐prototypes
ESS
2016
March
17th
2016
Boston
Park
Plaza
Hotel
chiaracarrozza@ces.uc.pt
Chiara
Carrozza,
research
fellow
Centro
de
Estudos
Sociais
-­‐
CES
hDp://www.ces.uc.pt/invesHgadores/index.php?acHon=bio&id_invesHgador=592

2. Background
• The
project
“The
importance
of
being
digital.
Exploring
digital
scholarship
and
digital
methods”
hDp://bedigital.hypotheses.org/
• Research
lines
– Digital
scholarship
– Digital
methods
– Digital
cultures
• Research
strategy
of
the
project:
training
events
to
gather
empirical
data

5. PragmaHc
“these
innovaHons
will
enable
research
to
be
conducted
more
quickly,
beDer,
and
in
more
powerful
ways”
(DuDon
2010:
21)
PoliHcal
“digital
scholarship
is
more
than
just
using
informaHon
and
communicaHon
technologies
to
research,
teach
and
collaborate;
it
also
includes
embracing
the
open
values,
ideology
and
potenHal
of
technologies
born
of
peer-­‐to-­‐peer
networking
and
wiki
ways
of
working
in
order
to
benefit
both
the
academy
and
society”
(Weller
2011:
50).
Epistemological
“does
the
digital
give
us
new
ways
to
think
or
only
ways
to
illustrate
what
we
already
know?”
(Kirch
2014)
“Can
we
study
social
media
to
learn
something
about
society
rather
than
about
social
media
use?
Can
hyperlinks
reveal
not
just
the
value
of
a
Web
site
but
the
poliHcs
of
associaHon?”
(Rogers
2013)

6. Debate
about
the
“crisis
of
empirical
social
sciences”
(Savage
and
Burrows
2007;
2009)
and
the
criHcal
agenda
of
the
‘Social
Life
of
Methods’
(Savage
2013)
ContribuHons
about
how
digital
data
and
devices
are
reconfiguring
social
science
methods
and
its
very
assumpHons
(Ruppert
et
al.
2013;
Marres
2012)
InvitaHon
to
culHvate
“live
sociology”
(Back
2007)
and
“live
methods”
(SI
on
the
Sociological
Review,
2012)
InvenHveness
of
methods
(Lury
and
Wakeford
2012)

7. Workshop
“FAQs
about
Open
Access:
the
poliHcal
economy
of
publishing
in
anthropology
and
beyond”
-­‐
Medialab-­‐Prado,
Madrid,
16-­‐17
October
2014.

8. hDp://medialab-­‐prado.es/

9. But
I
think
that
what
really
is
a
stake
for
social
sciences
is
not
the
quesHon
of
access
to
text
but
how
the
social
sciences
are
going
to
infrastructure
themselves
in
this
new
ecology
of
media
and
digital
signals
and
meaning
making
that
is
taking
shape.
And
if
we
reduce
the
quesHon…
to
access,
as
access
to
text,
and
the
assumpHons
that
the
kind
of
knowledge
that
is
implicit
or
inscribed
in
the
epistemics
of
text
I
think
in
a
way
we
are
entrenched
in
an
old
social
science
with
an
old
concepHon
of
what
scholarship
is
about,
what
making
scholarly
knowing
is
about
and
who
the
publics
of
that
scholarly
knowledge
are.
In
my
point
of
view,
I
would
try
to
displace
slightly
the
old
vision
of
what
is…
-­‐
not
so
much
what
is
open,
because
opening,
you
know,
it’s
a
poliHcal
ethics
quesHon
-­‐
but
to
what
access
is”
(Alberto
Corsín
Jiménez,
session
1).

10. Prototyping
cultures:
art,
science
and
poli:cs
in
beta.
Special
Issue,
Journal
of
Cultural
Economy
7
(4),
2014
hDp://www.prototyping.es/

11. Carrozza,
Chiara
&
Gaspar,
Andrea
(2016),
Performing
digital
ways
of
knowing:
epistemic
walks
with
methods-­‐
as-­‐prototypes,
Graduate
Journal
for
Social
Sciences
(GJSS).
Gaspar,
Andrea
(2016),
Taking
ethnography
&
design
collaboraHons
for
a
walk:
devicing
idiocy,
Tomás
Sánchez
Criado
and
Adolfo
Estalella
(eds.)
“Experimental
collaboraHons:
ethnography
through
fieldwork
devices”.

12. InvenHveness
is
not
intrinsic
to
methods,
it
is
rather
something
that
emerges
from
the
purposes
to
which
they
are
put.
(Lury
and
Wakeford
2012,
Inven,ve
Methods)