Comment on new directions in Ethnography
Last decade in enthnographic research?
You might want to search these topic areas, where there is very rapid growth:
Earlier this morning, I was looking at (“dolphin” OR “animal”) (“communication” OR “language”) with 1.37 Billion entry points. It cries out for organization, identification of duplicates and close variations; a core map of the content, groups, interests, and interactions. I am mainly interested where there are groups of hundreds of millions all beginning to work in global communities for the first time. Putting things on the Internet is just an indicator, there are specific practices that are needed to have sustainable communities collaborating efficiently. The independent, but unconnected efforts of that many individuals is extraordinarily inefficient for the human species. Our global GDP potential is at least a thousand times the world GDP. But humans do not value humans or other species. Individually sometimes, but not working globally.
Combining all human knowledge for one of these global communities has dramatic impact. Just imagine if the whole Internet were integrated and accessible. That is what I am working toward. But will probably die before I see any group taking the first steps. I have investigated close to 20,000 of these large groups in sufficient detail to understand their structure, dynamics and potential. All of them are not working anywhere near their potential. When I check all the countries, it is just sad. Most of the solutions are known, or just lying there to be used, but groups only work for themselves. (“covid” OR “coronavirus” OR “corona virus”) is down to 4.61 Billion entry points from a peak of 7.5 Billion because the groups that could mine it for their own benefit have mostly lost interest. We should have formed a global community instantly, and it would have been a small event, not a global catastrophe. Just watch sometime and see who benefits from these disasters and unsolved problems. And check the flows of data and methods. It is all paper methods pasted onto the Internet, not true best practices for global collaboration. Ethnographers must be truly lonely people.
