FigginsJ on FletcherA: Coming of Age in Second Life

Coming of Age in Second Life depicts imports ethnographic methodology into the digital platform of Second Life. It uses performance, theorized by the author using the Greek concept of techne to describe how meaning is made through action/practice within the bounds of a virtual sphere. In essence, it's a classic ethnography applied to a community that exists in a virtual space. Using this virtual world and its occupants as a subject does present the problem of an extra layer of removal: it's like studying the world of a puppet that's controled from a meta-entity. Equally, and not to disparage the community in Second Life, the stakes are different and there are formal constraints built in to the fabic of the game that may not translate as well into ethnographic terms.