The Slalom Method: How to zig-zag between digital methods and traditional methods in ethnography

Abstract

The increasing availability of digital resources is an opportunity as well as a challenge for ethnographers who seek to incorporate ‘the digital’ into their field studies. This article is an attempt to reflect on the peculiar nature of new digital resources, their relation to conventional method integration problems, and the practical opportunities for making the digital relevant to ethnographic field studies. These reflections are grounded in the authors’ trials and tribulations during an ethnographic project, in which a deliberate attempt was made to combine digital methods with traditional ethnographic methods. This involved wrestling with a series of methodological issues, which were eventually managed by developing an approach called the slalom method. The slalom method consists of a series of rules and heuristics that together constitutes a pragmatic strategy for facilitating the integration of digital resources into the iterative and reflexive process of an ethnographic field study.