ABSTRACT
This chapter capitalizes upon the inherent ambiguity contained in visual and digital ethnography as involving, to differing degrees, all domains. It examines the role of archival and curatorial practices. The chapter looks in detail at the challenges that occur when entering the terrain of visual ethnography from the perspective of curation and archiving. It addresses the implications of this perspective for what concerns both the production and the communication of research insights. iDocs can be looked upon as containers of a broad array of digital/visual practices and forms that can be incorporated in ethnography. The practices enacted in and through the dialectics between human and machine must be located along a continuum that goes from automation to agency. As a consequence of this, one needs to rethink curatorial practices beyond human agency alone and also critically question the very meaning of the terms that compose this notion (i.e. ‘human’ and ‘agency’).
