ABSTRACT
This chapter offers ‘theoretical provocations’ on the question of ‘what’s new’ for educational ethnography. I propose that new concepts developed through ethnographic research are ‘noisy’ and that precisely this noise (or glitchiness) is generative of new insights. The argument is unfolded through recent research on the practices of ‘digital education’. For many educational technologists, the question of ‘what’s new’ is straightforward. What’s new is technology: the most cutting-edge technology, the most user-friendly technology, the smoothest, shiniest technology. This chapter suggests that given the history of desires for novel technology, this novelty in itself is not at all what is new today. What is new is the widespread acceptance that edtech is ‘glitchy’. The chapter discusses ethnographic studies that illustrate the indeterminacy, fragility and failings of today’s data-intense edtech. Drawing on cultural theory, the chapter proposes the concept of ‘noisy data’ to capture the politics of this recognition of glitch and error in the everyday of edtech practices. The conclusion considers what noise means for ethnography itself, that is, the glitchiness of ‘new concepts’ and the generative potential of understanding novelty as ‘noisy novelty’. It ends with implications of this approach for research and practice.
