ABSTRACT
In this chapter I reect on digital ethnography and play through a one-year study with women who both work out using the mobile audio-adventure running game app, Zombies, Run! (Six to Start and Naomi Alderman 2012), and post about their running on Instagram. This study highlights how a multi-sited, mixed methods and sensory digital ethnography can contribute to a complex representation of how play intersects with and impacts on people’s everyday lives. Looking at personal congurations of playing Zombies, Run! (ZR henceforth), which are rendered here as playful and identity building lifestyle activities, this research produces a sociophenomenological account on women’s embodied knowledge in what is a commonplace networked leisure activity. The sensorial dimensions of running with zombies emerged as vital early in this study as participants denoted the sensorium of ZR running as a core motivation for continuing in this form of networked play.
