Hope assemblages. An ethnography of passionate blogging

Authors

  • Adolfo Estalella Centro de Ciencias Humanas y Sociales (CSIC) - Universitat Oberta de Catalunya

Abstract

The Internet and digital technologies have been accompanied by promises of future since their birth. I use the concept of hope in this article to refer to this particular orientation towards the future. I elaborate my argument drawing on ethnography of passionate bloggers, individuals that blog intensively, that are highly reflective with their practice and are engaged with the transformation of society. I present and discuss the production of expectations that accompany their hope and point out to two key issues in its coming into being. First, I refer to the performance of intense temporalities in blogging and discuss the decisive role of the Blogosphere infrastructure in this instance, it is by producing past facts that infrastructure provide the conditions of possibility for elaborating future expectations. Second, I conceptualize bloggers’ hope as a heterogeneous assemblage that destabilizes the ontology of the present by opening spaces of future possibility.

Keywords

Hope, Blogs, Expectations, Assemblages

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Author Biography

Adolfo Estalella, Centro de Ciencias Humanas y Sociales (CSIC) - Universitat Oberta de Catalunya

Trabaja como antropólogo, a medio camino entre la antropología y los estudios sociales de la ciencia y la tecnología. Sus temáticas de interés son las culturas digitales, la ética de la investigación de Internet y las técnicas digitales de investigación. En el momento de escribir este artículo se encuentra vinculado al Centro de Ciencias Humanas y Sociales del CSIC.

 

Published

2012-07-03

How to Cite

Estalella, A. (2012). Hope assemblages. An ethnography of passionate blogging. Athenea Digital. Revista De Pensamiento E investigación Social, 12(2), 161–174. https://doi.org/10.5565/rev/athenead/v12n2.909

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