Agency and labour in virtual worlds: the anthropology of doing culture

Abstract

This thesis provides a comparative analysis of the anthropology of virtual worlds and virtual world behaviour by providing a re-examination of the digital/real dichotomy and symbolic/interpretive anthropology. The thesis argues that virtual worlds are not found but created via the contingent relationship between virtual world designers and the agency and labour of users. Moreover, this thesis provides a rationale for the importance of studying virtual worlds from the ground up, that is, ethnographically, as the idea of what is real and what is not becomes muddled and unproductive when researchers observe the actuality of virtual world behaviour in virtual places within their own right. Lastly, this thesis suggests that future studies of virtual worlds should not rely on technologies that attempt to emulate a form of hyperrealism but should rather use cultures and the term doing culture in virtual worlds as the fundamental point of departure for understanding the project of being and becoming human.