Change and the Internet by Kjaerulff, Jens;

Short description:

This book explores the significance of new information technology for socio-cultural change and provides ethnographic insight into the early days of remote working. It draws on long-term anthropological fieldwork among people in rural Denmark working from home via the internet. 

Long description:

This book explores the significance of new information technology for socio-cultural change and provides ethnographic insight into the early days of remote working. It draws on long-term anthropological fieldwork among people in rural Denmark working from home via the internet. Going back to the late 1990s and early 2000s, the study demonstrates how remote and flexible working was mostly practiced informally, fostering incremental changes to the cultural domain of ‘work’. It captures the dilemmas arising from living with multiple arenas and the challenges of balancing work and family life – a predicament which motivates many to embrace remote working. The volume contains an updated introduction and conclusion where the author reflects on the historical moment of his fieldwork and on the impact of the recent Covid-19 pandemic on working practices. The book offers a valuable comment on how to empirically study the social and cultural significance of new information technologies, as well as how to think of and empirically research change anthropologically, situating information technology in a broader offline context of unfolding complex living. It will be of interest to scholars of social anthropology and digital ethnography, as well as others with a focus on social aspects of information technology and on work and organizational studies.

“This extraordinarily dense ethnographic study impresses through the highly sophisticated intertwining of empiric research and anthropological theory. It provides fundamental insights in the three research fields of the anthropology of change, the anthropology of work, and anthropology of technology - an intellectual highlight for each reading list.”

- Gertraud Koch, University of Hamburg, Germany

“Kjaerulff is a pioneer in this field. He was studying this well before remote working became, quite literally, a household notion around the globe. […] Too often commentators and ordinary citizens (including students) will overemphasise novelty at the expense of continuity. Kjaerulff’s book will help students and scholars think about the continuities and changes of remote work in a much more sophisticated way.”

- John Postill, RMIT University, Australia

Table of Contents:

1. Change and the Internet: Framing the Issue  2. Revisited: The Wednesday Lunch Group, Comparison and Change  3. Forays in a Village: Modelling Process and Diversity  4. Fieldwork on Telework: Unfolding Events, Knowledge and Traditions  5. Work as a Tradition of Knowledge: Towards Modelling Incremental Change in the Context of Universal Computers  6. What Motivates Telework? Concerns and flexibilities  7. A Housewife with a Career’: Towards Comparison  8. Probing the Limits: ‘Freedoms’ of Freelance Journalism  9. Concluding Reflections