My research focuses on developing an innovative “platform ethnography” that explores the social applications of ethnography. The goal is to contribute to a new world by bridging human activities and insights from cultural anthropology with emerging technologies such as ICT, IoT, blockchain, and AI.

With the widespread adoption of smartphones in Tanzania, where I am conducting research, people have started sharing their experiences and culture with the world via social media. In this context, the ontological significance of ethnographies written by cultural anthropologists is being questioned.

I decided to re-examine the use of ICT in anthropological ethnography and explore new methodologies and significance in this field through collaboration with people in society.

My goal is to create a platform where researchers, practitioners, and people from different fields can freely discuss and collaborate based on multimodal ethnography, and apply the ideas they gain from ethnography to actual social issues. This also means creating a place where we can draw ideas for envisioning future societies from ethnography, which is rich with the activities and wisdom of people from diverse cultures, and engage in discussions about alternative societal models together.

In the first year, I will investigate the theoretical and methodological issues related to platform ethnography. In the second and third years, I will develop a prototype of multimodal ethnography and share it on the platform for feedback from researchers and practitioners. In the fourth and fifth years, we will apply this prototype to address real social problems, based on the platform discussions and ideas shared, and publish the practical outcome as an ethnography.

My primary contributions are in anthropology and area studies. I believe that multimodal ethnography and innovative methodologies using ICT will garner international attention in the future. Therefore, I believe that this research will benefit a broad range of scholars in the humanities and social sciences. I anticipate that the approach of collaborating with society through ethnography will pave the way for humanities researchers to pursue careers in the private sector.

Partnerships:
Potential partners include researchers in the fields of information science and engineering, companies that want to utilize ethnographic methodologies, and social business practitioners who want to acquire ideas for envisioning society from the practices and insight of people from different cultures.

Research collaborations:
The Internet is also a medium that facilitates random encounters with people worldwide. I look forward to working with people I meet on the platform, including researchers and practitioners from across diverse disciplines. I would like to build a relationship of equality while respecting different positions and purposes.