Performativity and Belonging: Negotiating the Ethnographer and Her Field in Virtual Worlds

Consumer research has historically found the philosophical rendering of concepts such as agency and structure, essence and anti-essentialism, social stratification and social reproduction an eternal concern when theorising consumer phenomena. Within the disciplinary discussions of the researcher-respondent relationship however dualistic models endure. This paper explores this issue within the context of our own work as ethnographers in virtual worlds. To do this we present auto-ethnographic vignettes of our arrival narratives within these virtual worlds drawing on the concepts of performativity and belonging and conclude that the multiple co-constructions of self and other that we co-perform with our research subjects have many insights to offer consumer research, and to progress our understanding of our own real world research practice.

Citation:

Ioanna Nikolaou and Shona Bettany (2011) ,"Performativity and Belonging: Negotiating the Ethnographer and Her Field in Virtual Worlds", in E - European Advances in Consumer Research Volume 9, eds. Alan Bradshaw, Chris Hackley, and Pauline Maclaran, Duluth, MN : Association for Consumer Research, Pages: 448.