Mobile Subjects Mobile Methods
Mobile Subjects Mobile Methods
Mobile Subjects Mobile Methods
14
S O C IA L R ES EA RC H September 2007
S O ZIA LFO RS C HU N G
Michaela Fay
Key words: Abstract: In this article I give an account of my cyberethnographic study of the International Wom-
mobility, en's University "Technology and Culture" (ifu) 2000 and the network its participants formed in the
transnational ifu's virtual extension, vifu. The article offers a description of the methodological considerations and
feminism, belong- challenges I was confronted with whilst carrying out this research. In addition, I explore these
ing, university, methodological considerations on a conceptual level. Primarily concerned with questions of home
nomadism, and belonging and the question of how these notions figure in contemporary mobile lives, I explore
women's studies here how conducting online research became the only possible method to adequately reflect the
"mobile" nature not only of the event ifu and its virtual extension vifu, but also the ways in which
participants negotiate belonging and mobility in their respective worlds and to the (v)ifu network.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction
2. Mobilities and Methods
3. The International Women's University "Technology and Culture" 2000 (ifu)
3.1 Virtual ifu: vifu
4. Tracing Mobility, Making Belonging
4.1 Becoming online researcher
4.2 Meanings of "home"
4.3 Making home online
5. Conclusion
References
Author
Citation
1. Introduction
In this article I give an account of my cyber ethnographic research of, and with
the participants of the International Women's University "Technology and Culture"
(ifu), held in Germany in 2000. The aim of the article is to demonstrate how online
connectivity, alongside a differentiated understanding of mobility and academic
feminism, shapes belonging in the context of a transnational feminist network. In
order to demonstrate this mutually constitutive relationship, I focus here on two
interrelated issues. First, I describe how I came to conduct online research and
how mobility features in this research process both as an analytical tool and a
topic. Secondly, I explore some of the participants' mobility patterns—
geographical, social, intellectual, virtual—in more detail and highlight the
negotiations of what it means to "belong" that ensue from such mobility. Both
elements of this account revolve around ifu's virtual extension, vifu. I focus on
how the virtual ifu came to be my place of research and how it became a place of
belonging for ifu participants where they themselves theorise and negotiate
mobility. [1]
In a similar vein, Kevin HANNAM, Mimi SHELLER and John URRY (2006, p.2)
suggest that a "new mobilities' paradigm" is emerging in the social sciences
which begs us to account for "mobilities in the fullest sense", thus challenging
social science to change both the objects of its inquiries and the methodologies
for research. As the materiality of mobilities becomes more complex, HANNAM et
al. argue, we need to be asking different questions about the conditions of
mobility. This includes the premise that mobility cannot be described without
taking into account the "spatial, infrastructural and institutional moorings that
configure and enable mobilities" (p.3). Consequently, such paradigm is not simply
about "privileging a 'mobile subjectivity'", rather it asks us to track in our research
"the power and politics of discourses and practices of mobility in creating both
movement and stasis" (p.4). [3]
I propose that nowhere is this more obvious and important than in relation to
academic feminism and feminist (cyber) networks. The relatively recent
preoccupation of feminist scholarship with mobility, most notably perhaps in the
form of theories of transnational feminism and nomadism (BRAIDOTTI, 1994;
BRAH, 1996; KAPLAN & GREWAL, 2002; MENDOZA, 2002; MOHANTY, 2003)
confirms this. In these arguments we are reminded that, having historically been
the symbolic and material epitome of immobility or forced mobility, women are
playing an increasingly important role as "agents of change" (KREUTZNER &
SCHELHOWE, 2003). That is to say, academia in general, and Women's Studies
in particular, have provided the ground for the increase in actual mobility for
women as well as a the theorisation of mobility as nomadic scholarship
(BRAIDOTTI, 1994) as the context from which and within which, women and
feminist scholarship circulate. [4]
creation of online-identities, most theorists have come to take cyberspace and the
ways in which individuals inhabit it as not existing in a cultural, social, political and
economic void (e.g. BALSAMO, 1996; GRAY, 1995). Rather, the discussion in
the literature has moved from a simple binary opposition of "real" and "virtual" to
more nuanced accounts of the imaginaries of the former and the embodied and
experienced materialities of the latter. [5]
Furthermore, the technology itself (and the interest in it) can be said to have
moved in the background of the debate in favour of explorations of the ways in
which individuals make use of it. Forms of connectivity and ways to connect,
including questions of power and inequalities, are certainly at the heart of these
explorations. In this article, it is my aim to contribute precisely to that
development rather than to discuss the internet and its communication tools as
such. In particular, I am interested in understanding how belonging and mobility
are experienced, theorised, and negotiated online. [6]
Following this line of thought, I suggest here that it is of little use to think of "real"
space in opposition to and separate from cyberspace. Rather, I adopt here the
view that, in order to understand multiple expressions and experiences of
mobility, it is more useful to think of offline and online spaces and interactions in
relation to each other. John URRY's (2002, 2003) analysis of physical co-
presence in relation to virtual dwelling offers a useful step in this direction. [8]
A clearer idea of the event ifu, the virtual platform vifu, and the network of women
that emerged from both will illustrate the context above. [10]
Inspired by the slogan "100 days for 100 years"2, the first International Women's
University "Technology and Culture" 2000 (ifu) was held in Germany and
designed as a three-month postgraduate program with a decidedly international,
women only student body; an interdisciplinary curriculum; and a theoretical focus
on women and gender. Overall, the event consisted of a number of components
and groups of actors. The curriculum was organised into 6 "Project Areas" (PAs)
rather than traditional academic disciplines. These PAs were Body, City,
Information, Migration, Water, and Work and application by participants was to
one of them respectively. In total 747 women from 105 countries participated in
the academic program of ifu. In addition to the student participants, 313 lecturers
from 49 countries contributed to ifu. Alongside these two main groups of
academic actors, ifu was equipped with a large number of administrative staff, as
well as 74 academic tutors. In addition, the project comprised three further
components, a Service Centre, an Open Space program and lastly a virtual
component, the Virtual International Women's University (vifu). [11]
The women who attended the event as participants came from a wide array of
different walks of life. Mainly, they had an academic background (predominantly,
but not exclusively, in the Social Sciences, including Gender and Women's
Studies). A substantial number of participants had a professional or vocational
background (for example in law, teaching, NGO work, human rights, medicine,
developmental aid work, social work). [12]
Ifu was designed both as emerging from and contributing to the reforms in Higher
Education in Germany in particular and in Europe more generally.3 These are in
particular developments toward increased internationality of student bodies,
including a rise in student mobility; the reorientation of academic disciplines
toward interdisciplinary research; as well as the trend toward the corporatisation
of universities. When the idea of ifu materialised, its creators had hopeful and
utopian visions in mind about what such a space would be like, who would inhabit
it and how it would change the world. [13]
The virtual ifu was imagined to enable and establish a network of women that was
not limited to or restricted by a particular time and space. Vifu is an example that
both contributes to and is influenced by the context of debates about the increase
in mobility and the decrease in distance due to computer-based communication
(see above). Those of us privileged enough to have frequent and working
internet-access are forever but "an e-mail away" and academic life in particular is
one arena which is characterised by a sometimes overwhelming onscreen
dwelling. It is thus not surprising that ifu's virtuality has been regarded by its
founders as representative of "the development and implementation of visions of
the 21st century university" (METZ-GÖCKEL, 2002, p.346, my translation). Vifu
aims to resemble the alumnae activities and networks which have long been com-
mon in the Anglo-American academic tradition, where affiliation with one's educa-
tional institution does not end on the day one graduates but is sustained—often
for a lifetime—via newsletters, university magazines, and reunion meetings. [16]
Ifu's long-term existence in cyberspace was thus not considered the "next best
thing to the real thing" but a necessary and timely extension of and addition to
ifu's onsite-ness. Six years on, the continuing online activity and exchange among
ifu participants indicates the "realness" of vifu. [18]
So when ifu became vifu, a corporeal, on-site community was meant to become a
virtual one—a networked web of attachments and connections. This network, it
was hoped, would further aid "relating the global and the local". Consequently,
virtual connections were not so much seen as created by electronic networks in
and of themselves but rather as an "intercultural exchange" in which one's local
context becomes visible and forms the "basis for mutual understanding and
diversity at the same time" (SCHELHOWE, 2001, p.15). [19]
In sum, vifu enabled communication between ifu participants beyond ifu's three-
months on site period, thus enabling participants to "speak and act in local
contexts with the new experiences and the knowledge you have gained at ifu"
(SCHELHOWE, 2001, p.16). With this in mind, SCHELHOWE would like to see
ifu as a starting point for a rich offering of academic and other information about
subjects which are important for women—some of which she sees represented in
the interdisciplinary themes of the event's project areas. [20]
What did and does vifu look like, then and what does it offer its users? Most
basically, from a user and member's (but also visitor's) point of view, it is a
website:
Arguably the most important component of vifu, from a participant's point of view,
are vifu's mailing list facilities of which the students@vifu list is to date the most
active and comprises the largest number of subscribers. A number of other,
smaller (and often purpose and/or topic bound) lists also exist. It was on the
students list where most of my research took place. [23]
In my research on ifu and vifu I wanted to understand how this highly mobile
group of women experiences and reflects upon their mobility practices, and how
these are also but not only shaped by the event ifu itself. In addition, I was
interested in how such mobility affected their understanding of home and
belonging. And thirdly, I wanted to explore whether online networks such as vifu
can become places of belonging when belonging "in the real world" might not
always be straightforward. These questions, I think, can only be explored by
looking at the ways in which on-site dwelling and subsequent online-dwelling
inform and mutually constitute each other. [25]
Whilst carrying out my research, I realised that each of these questions required
me to not only take on a slightly different researcher position but also to adopt a
different set of research tools. Consequently, my research combined fact-to-face
interviews with online research and textual analysis. Conceptually, it is my
suggestion that when examining mobility it is also, but by no means merely,
"movement" that requires attention. Instances of togetherness and belonging,
Ethnographic research has seen fundamental changes from its colonial origins
(CLIFFORD & MARCUS, 1986), especially in so far as it has begun to take into
account the increasing and diverse mobilities emergent in the processes of
globalisation (e.g. GILLE & O'RIAIN, 2002). As a methodology, it has become
more multifaceted, and more often than not multi-sited, than it once was. [28]
Wanting to research the mobility practices and the ways in which the women in
this network negotiate belonging, I found myself confronted with a number of
questions, some conceptual, some mundane and practical. How could I reach
potential research participants? How could I "interview" them, given that I was
"here" and they were scattered elsewhere? Where exactly were the boundaries of
my field? Was my participation in ifu "fieldwork"? Does my own dwelling in vifu
count as fieldwork or is it only fieldwork when I hang out there "as a researcher"
and how would I be different then from being "me"? [32]
My research of the ifu network did not begin in cyberspace. Rather, it started out
with a number of face-to-face interviews with ifu-participants during my own
participation in the event as a student in the project area Body. Given ifu's
parameters of internationality it was not surprising that whilst attending the event I
encountered a substantial number of women who are indeed, academically,
geographically and socially extremely mobile. While talking to other ifu
participants I also learned that women's mobility patterns are coloured by
particular contradictions and challenges. These women seemed to have reflected
a lot about their own mobility, including the weighing of the personal costs and
benefits of being mobile, especially when the driving force behind their mobility
was professional advancement. I was curious what those negotiations and
possible trade offs were. [33]
The stories that emerged from these interviews pointed to several layers of the
meanings of "home" and belonging and of how they are constructed and
experienced. Home was something that none of the women took for granted and
that they had, indeed, spent a good deal of time thinking about. Often, home was
experienced as an absence or a progressive loss. This loss was mainly based on
either having left a childhood home in order to pursue education and/or travel or
never having experienced what was romantically imagined as an unspoiled
childhood home. Consequently, home had to be grafted in the comings and
goings of one's biographical and professional trajectory. "Where" home was
located differed from interviewee to interviewee. For some it was a geographical
concept, for others a more emotional-intellectual one. For some, home was a
constantly evolving and emerging concept that changed shape and meaning
alongside other factors. Notably, all the women I interviewed were in an economic
and social position to move freely (geographically as well as socially). Such a
position will necessarily have had an impact on how they perceive their
experience of being-at-home and the privilege to mourn the loss of home that, in
one way or another they feel entitled to. [34]
the formation and the notion of the "homelessness" of mind has been described
as a specific modern form of consciousness (BERGER, BERGER & KELLNER,
1974). In contrast, contemporary mobility, and especially that of women, is
marked by an apparent paradox. On the one hand there is an increase in agency
of some over their mobility4, on the other hand, being highly mobile is now often
seen as a required necessity of professional advancement, thus challenging
many of the characteristics of women's biographies. I suggest therefore, that the
emotionally informed accounts of home and belonging as I just described them
can be read as confirming long-standing dilemmas while simultaneously
addressing new complexities. Making sense of being part of a globalised elite of
female academics requires a more nuanced conception of mobility and
belonging. [35]
The narratives in the initial interviews confirmed that ifu did indeed attract—and
arguably help to create—women who were highly mobile and who did
intellectualise as well as "emotionalise" the experience of their own mobility,
including the impact this has on the meanings of home. I wondered what are the
gendered social, political and subjective configurations of being mobile? How do
these women negotiate the question of "home" in the making of their identities?
And how does trans-national mobility variously refigure what is meant by "home"
and "belonging"? In addition, I began to wonder whether an event such as ifu can
become a reference point of belonging as well as a platform for the expression of
social changes, such as the existence of a growing number of (geographically
and intellectually) mobile women. [36]
Thus, the necessity for online research began to emerge. For, quite simply, if I
was to reach and research the members of this dispersed network, I had no
choice but to do so on the basis of the experience they all shared—attending ifu
—and in the one place they all shared—vifu. The very fact that my research
participants are mobile necessitated moving my research online. [37]
Despite having been a member of my field and despite having conducted face-to-
face interviews, I experienced the moment of beginning to conduct online
research very much as a second entry into the field and almost as a "starting
over" of the entire research process, including a re-positioning of myself towards
the project, the field, the participants, and what it was I wanted to find out. When I
first approached ifu-participants through vifu platforms I was reminded of
Christine HINE's (2000, p.74) experience of initiating a cyber study, where the
initial e-mail one sends seems to take on monumental significance "as [the] first
and possibly only opportunity to perform [one's] identity as a researcher". Unlike
HINE, however, I had already met and formed personal relationships with some
of the women I knew to be present online. I also already had first hand
experience of the event I studied as well as a period of dwelling "privately" (as a
"normal participant") in the online spaces that I was now to study and to draw on as
a resource. However, I felt that this personal knowledge and experience was pre-
4 Of particular political importance when read in relation to the persistent powerlessness others
have over their mobility.
cisely what made the shift from "participant/member" to "researcher" rather tricky
indeed. [38]
In the hope to spark a sense of recognition in recipients, I began the e-mail with a
number of questions, ranging from associations of home with a geographical
place, to the role of online connectivity, to, lastly, the question how ifu and this
network of women features as a "homely" point of reference:
• If someone asked you "where are you from", would you not really know how to
answer that question?
• Are you one of those busy women who move around a lot (for whatever reason)
and live "all over the place"?
• Do you live (far) away from your "home" country and aren't sure anymore what
that means anyway?
• Do you lead a nomadic lifestyle in which most of your friends are only with you in
virtual spaces?
• Do you speak several languages and are not always sure which one is "yours"?
• Do you feel that your experiences at ifu were somehow a rollercoaster of all those
questions? [41]
IMPORTANT
I am sending this e-mail out now due to the upheaval concerning the future of vifu
and the insecurity of our mailing lists' future. So, please, if you are interested in
participating in my study, let me know as soon as you can (the latest by the 30th of
June), so that I can reach you later even in the worst case ... [42]
I posted this invitation to the "students" mailing list almost one year to the day
after ifu's onsite period had begun. It was a time when the list was very lively
indeed and ifu-participants had settled into the transition from onsite-ness to now
having become an online community. I aimed to formulate this call for research
participation as openly as I could.5 I wanted the women's own associations with
the questions and issues I offered them. In fact, in a second call I widened these
possibilities even further by actively inviting women to contribute to the project not
only in the form of writing, but also to draw on other artefacts such as
photographs, objects and so on. [43]
5 The fact that, seemingly in opposition to this aim, the questions in this research call are closed
questions requires some explanation. The questions were not intended to be answered in a
survey-like fashion. Rather, they were designed as "flash cards" for associations with the topics
raised. As such they were successful in inspiring participants to produce their own accounts,
using the voice and format best suited for each individual participant.
posting, the financial future of the server and, hence, the network itself, was very
uncertain. Part and parcel of the financial support for ifu was sufficient funding for
the vifu-server (the necessary technology as well as the humans maintaining it). It
was unclear from the outset what would happen beyond ifu's onsite period but
around the time I sent this research call the server's future was more insecure
than ever before. Consequently, there was a palpable, panicky unease on the
mailing list. Some list members were in the midst of establishing alternative
possibilities, such as creating a Yahoo newsgroup, frantically gathering e-mail
addresses and instructing list members in how to subscribe to such a platform.
The final paragraph of my e-mail reflects my own fear of losing track of my
research participants. As it turned out, more funding was secured and the server
continued to exist unchanged (at least to the face of its users). It was indeed,
updated and expanded and went on to receive an ICT award 6—until it was
attacked and destroyed and had to be reconstructed almost from scratch.
Unfortunately, some parts of the original website could never fully be rebuilt and
much of the older information is no longer available.7 [45]
Replies to my invitation took a number of forms. They varied from a simple "I am
interested" to lengthy biographical narratives. I was touched by the supportive
tone of the replies—in fact, there was often a sense of "thankfulness" that my e-
mail had initiated the possibility to stop and contemplate personal and political
issues that were somehow "there" but did not necessarily penetrate one's
everyday living and thinking. Most women positioned themselves in their replies
both biographically, professionally and in their relation to ifu. They detailed the
various places in which they lived throughout their lives and some of the
circumstances. In contrast to the previously conducted face-to-face interviews,
the narrations seemed to raise more complex negotiations of mobility, suggestion
a transformative impact of the event ifu. The sheer amount of movement present
in these biographies was quite astonishing. Interestingly, in some ways it only
became fully apparent to me when I compared it to some postings in which
women pointed out their "lack" of movement, stating that they have "only" lived in
two different countries. That is, what became apparent in these replies was an
implicit understanding of mobility as a cultural currency and the more "exotic" the
trajectory was perceived to be, the more authenticity those western women felt
they had as members of my project. Levels of authenticity for a "truly globally
mobile" trajectory were described as, for example, living, working and travelling in
non-European countries, living and working in a language other than one's
mother tongue, but also in the very scale of the mobility that had taken place.
That is not to say that mobility is only to be considered or experienced as a
matter of miles travelled but rather as an accumulation of difference. Often
respondents shared with me their own research on related topics and opened up
the possibility for professional exchange. A couple of respondents single-
6 The "Multimedia Transfer 2003", a big German competition for young multimedia specialists, for
which the vifu team applied with the vifu expert directory and vifu library. Having received this
award meant that the team was invited go to the 11th (2003) European Congress for
Educational and Information Technologies (LEARNTEC) in Karlsruhe in order to present vifu to
a large, professionally relevant public.
7 Yet another element of the precariousness of online life and documentation but one that will
have to be explored elsewhere.
I decided on this final method of information gathering for two reasons. Firstly, I
thought it useful to gain insights into the ifu population that would allow for more
direct comparison between individual women. Secondly, it was driven by a certain
degree of fear of not having "enough" data and my own feeling that information
provided in a questionnaire would somehow be more "legitimate" than "just e-
mails". [48]
The average age of my research participants was, at the time of fieldwork, 32,
which also reflects the average age of ifu participants overall. Most of the women
answering my online questionnaire would define themselves as feminists,
although some are "undecided" and one woman answered with a distinct "no".
Most of my research participants are originally from Western countries, ranging
from Britain, Sweden, Germany, Italy to Greece, and the Netherlands but going
as far as India and the United States as well as Israel, Turkey, Croatia and the
Ukraine. In three cases, country of origin and nationality differ from each other.
Almost none of them, however, were at the time of fieldwork resident in their
country of origin—and surprisingly, all those women who were, were German,
which makes this group of research participants the least mobile. Most members
of this small group of women have also not actually lived in any other countries
apart from Germany. Current countries of residence span a similar field to
countries of origin. They range from Canada to Estonia and include the UK,
Germany, Sweden, Spain, Austria, France and the Netherlands. The length of
residency in any given case differs widely and ranges from "all my life" to just a
few months but averages at approximately three and a half years. Most of my
research participants have lived in two or three different countries and most of
them on a continent different from their original home place. There are a number
of reasons for the women's mobility but in most cases, "work" or "research" is
mentioned as the motor, and in one case "father's profession". The legal status of
research participants in their respective countries of residence is either as a
citizen, a permanent resident or on a visa (mostly as a student). One of them is
resident as a political refugee and one is classified as "undocumented". All of my
research participants share a similar professional background, namely in
research and teaching. Interestingly, most women live in a long-term romantic
relationship and approximately half of them live with a partner of a different
nationality than their own. This applies equally to women who define themselves
as "straight" and those who define themselves as "queer" (approximately two
thirds and one third of participants respectively). Furthermore, many of these
relationships are long distance. Mobility is thus not completely restricted to the
professional realm but is also, one could argue, of a "cultural kind" in so far as
there will be a number of negotiations (cultural as well as political and
bureaucratic) that arise from these relationships. In some instances "love" is
mentioned as the reason for one's mobility. That is to say, these women have
decided to move to where their partners were located (ideally combined with a
professional move/development of their own). It is perhaps not surprising that
these mobile relationships are childless. In fact, only one woman who participated
in my research has children and her biography is one that is marked by the
absence of geographical mobility. [49]
Understandings of one's own mobility vary greatly among the women who
participated in my research, although most women would define themselves
either as global citizens or travellers. A number of women identified with the
category of the nomad and a small number thought of themselves as migrants,
one woman respectively as refugee and as exile and two as diasporic.
Disidentifications corresponded in a contrasting manner. That is to say, those
women who identified their mobility as diasporic or exilic or thought of themselves
as refugees were most likely to have a strong disassociation with categories such
as global citizen. And vice versa, women who thought of themselves as travellers,
tended to disidentify strongly with migrant or refugee. The latter, they explained
has strong connotations with force and displacement whereas they perceived
their own mobility as more privileged. Other categories given were "restless",
"migrant by choice", "homeless", "illegal", "unsettled", "foreigner" and "globe
trotter". [50]
When asked about their associations with home, the importance of roots, family
and relationships is mentioned most often. A number of women mention
"childhood" as a reference point of their definition of home. Also, "geography"
plays an important role in whether one feels at home or not. This means, home is
associated with a place but often a specific place with respect to its geography.
"Safety" and "comfort" are mentioned as important characteristics of feeling at
home. Interestingly, it is one woman who lives in Israel and one woman who is a
political refugee resident in Sweden, who stress the latter. With respect to ifu's
It proved useful to take this path as indeed the questionnaires did give me
information that allowed for a comparative analysis between individual
participants. This, in turn, allowed me to see certain patterns in their biographies
and in the stories they told me that other kinds of data could not necessarily have
achieved in such a clear fashion. [52]
Overall, the period of online research lasted several months, although, for the
reasons outlined above, its beginning and especially its end are hard to pinpoint.
My own participation in the network as well as the occasional research-related
exchange continued even when I had officially completed my fieldwork. In
addition to the online fieldwork, I was able to conduct two face-to-face interviews
with participants who had also replied to my research calls and answered my
online questionnaire. Doubtless, in these two cases, I was able to construct the
cases with most depth. [53]
But what about ifu? How, if at all, did ifu feature in the narrations of research
participants? Frequently, ifu was mentioned as an intellectual as well as
emotional home "where I touch base every so often … in order to reconnect with
that home-feeling I had at ifu". In the final section of this article I elaborate on this
latter version of home and explore how ifu and vifu interact with each other and
shape each other as home-places. [55]
After the 3-month onsite period, participants returned back home to re-root
themselves in their respective home places. In addition, they constructed a
collective sense of belonging to their "ifu-home". That is to say, for participants
the event itself did not end after its 3-month onsite period. Rather, this could be
seen as just the beginning of something else. Namely, it was the beginning of
becoming a geographically dispersed collective which creates togetherness
"elsewhere". [56]
This begs the question whether and how in cyberspace belonging becomes not
only collective but also transcends geographical definitions. Rather than posing a
dichotomy of home versus not-home, I found in my research the co-existence of
several homes: being at home in one's geographical location while
simultaneously writing home in (and to) cyberspace. As participants claim vifu as
a place of connectivity, the event ifu is viewed both more nostalgically as an
unspoilt place of origin and more critically (with increased distance). Arguing with
Sara AHMED (2004, p.37), we might call such collective attachment—to ifu as
well as one another—"the making of ground, rather than the settlement on
ground" (my emphasis). [57]
And yet, URRY's argument does seem not extend to a reworking of the very
structures and meanings of face-to-faceness and virtuality respectively. Nor does
he seem to take account of the full complexity of how these two modes of being
influence each other in the emergence of a shared identity. I would thus like to
extend URRY's argument by stressing the importance of the corporeal event as a
reference point for a sense of belonging and through that, shared identity as "ifu
women". It seems thus important to not simply oppose "real" space and online
space, but to consider that it might simply be that the very "stuff" of togetherness
changes. [59]
In vifu, "having been there" is not constructed with reference to geography, but
rather in reference to a shared event. The event is constructed as a reference
point for imagined community. The "realness" of vifu is thus neither reducible to
physical co-presence, nor to the realm of imagined togetherness in the way
Benedict ANDERSON (1983) for example defines it. Vifu is seen as an affective,
emotional space based on an imagined shared experience, as another list
member puts it: "The actual power of vifu", she writes in an e-mail to the mailing
list, "is the strong emotion that we've been preserving since three years and the
emotion was developed from our live participation in the three months pilot
project" (posted 29/10/2003). Whereas it could and has been argued that
emotional online-attachment gets established through meeting (likeminded
people) in e-spaces (e.g. RHEINGOLD, 1994) and/or as suggested by URRY
through a combination of virtual and face-to-face encounters, the strong
emotional attachment to vifu is explained by the shared experience of having
participated in ifu. On the students mailing list, the vifu network is frequently
described as a web of connections and support that feels comfortable because
there seems to be a understanding of its members as having a high level of
intercultural and global "literacy". One list member describes it as follows:
"I have found myself more and more participant in a large loose web of (European)
feminists who read each other and think with each other and more and more support
each other also emotionally and personally: in short some kind of non-local feminist
post-family is forming bit by bit and I am continually amazed to feel so comfortable in
it." [61]
In vifu, another list member writes, she feels as so she is "part of a global group
of women with a shared past and sometimes shared goals, interests, worries".
Vifu thus becomes a place of possibilities to re-shape and invent versions of
belonging that takes mobility into account because, as yet another list member
put it "no other forum in my life offers a possibility to dream of a real global
women's network". [62]
Read in dialogue with the empirical data above, these examples of discussions
on the students mailing list illuminate the necessity to rethink feminist places and
modes of belonging and, as part of a larger and wider project, invite us to
critically assess the multiple dimensions of the changing nature of feminism as a
"mobile project". Increasingly, as I have demonstrated throughout, geographically
rooted and institutionally grounded settings are only one way to carve out "places
of our own". [63]
5. Conclusion
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Author
Citation
Fay, Michaela (2007). Mobile Subjects, Mobile Methods: Doing Virtual Ethnography in a Feminist
Online Network [64 paragraphs]. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum: Qualitative Social
Research, 8(3), Art. 14, http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs0703141.