Overview of the seminar

Information and communication technologies change the research scenario. The mediated and technologized environments of communication provide new possibilities for making self and other, fostering network and organization, and shaping social structures. However these are not simply new objects of analysis. They deserve our attention to new epistemological issues and compel researchers to reflect upon the conventional assumptions of research methods. Online ethnography is one of the examples. The “field” studied by an ethnographer is no longer physically bounded. Yet it is not adequately to confine it to the so-called “cyberspace”. How to redefine the field in the digital era has become an issue with methodological and theoretical implications. The discussion will focus on it and a case study of youth and political engagement in Hong Kong.

Biography of Speaker

Iam-chong Ip is Assistant Professor of Cultural Studies at Lingnan University, where he teaches courses in socio-cultural changes of modern China, ethnographic methods, and urban politics. His research interests include identity politics, social activism, and modern Chinese intellectual formation. His research has been published in Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, Critical Sociology, Cultural Dynamics and Asian Survey.