ABSTRACT
This chapter demonstrates how the issue of cultural change related to internet usage may be approached from an anthropological perspective, empirically and analytically, in a versatile comparative fashion. It considers the villages of Fibsted and Vopperup as samples of complex society. The chapter examines cases of unfolding acts and events – of particular processes of unfolding living and culturally informed reflection and action. It focuses on practices of telework and applies a theoretical framework derived from Fredrik Barth, in particular by conceptualising work as a tradition of knowledge. The most immediately salient empirical finding – that telework is predominantly informally and widely practiced – is simply inexplicable within Richard Sennett's analytical scheme, and also remarkably untouched in much literature on the subject of telework. While Barth may not be in fashion, he engages, in my judgement, with profound questions that have remained surprisingly ignored in mainstream social theory.
