ABSTRACT
By bringing together digital ethnography and the study of contemporary digital and visual practices such as selfies, I illustrate how digital ethnography represents a powerful tool to envision early emergent phenomena in digital culture (Hand 2008) while it is taking place. In particular, I explore how use of previous fieldwork, as a historical archive, could help us rethink current phenomena in alternative ways and via alternative, even non-linear, gene alogies, while attempting to avoid focusing merely on new technological platforms or iterations. I close with three elements that I consider fundamental to understanding digital ethnography as an epistemic intervention in the era of Big Data.
