Yeah. Shame. There was an "online ethnography" attempt a few
years ago but it's on a website with broken PHP, old articles
and smells of dust mites and rot.
I never cared for the stereotyping in anthropology... but
ethnography is uniquely fascinating because it looks at people
from a simultaneous subjective/objective perspective. Very rare
indeed.
Example: When I first heard of bronies a few years ago, I
quickly learned what i could about the general perspective of
bronie-dom and wrote a defense-of bronies for a wider population
(the early Google+... 2011 I think?) - anyway, ended up gaining
me several hundred brony friends because, "I understood them".
And I do. Yet, I'm not part of the group either.
It's the perspective I have whenever I find a group fascinating.
Last was Philosophers / Logicians. I concluded my study last
night. I enter with a "What's it like to think/feel/be from this
perspective?" - and I always walk away enriched with knowledge I
can apply elsewhere.
If I haven't _personally_ found myself changed by the
experience, then I'm not finished yet. Took me nine months.
