La Cyberanthropologie, le soi sur Internet

Abstract

Cyberanthropology, the self on the Internet

The Cyberanthropology or the anthropology of cyberculture is the study of human beings-machine relation and the relation among human beings, in a cyberspace free from any physical presence and whose contents are changing and unstable. We could have, as a result of the human being-machine relation, a varied and multiple self, representing by that a postmodern era in which the person would face a fragmentation of both individual and collective identity. This research showed that Cyberanthropology does not present itself as a completely new discipline. but it has its own fields of ethnographic studies which are characterized by the appearance of a new notion; that of cyberculture. The varied studies of cyberculture revealed that the discipline of cyberanthropology, with its particular methods and concepts, tries to highlight the dynamic spaces of socio-cultural interactions on the Web. Through these spaces, anthropologists examine phenomena previously known in the so-called classical discipline of anthropology, gender, social belonging, religion and the consumption of information and communication technologies (ICT), all these aspects characterize the real life of human beings (the offline lives) and on which individuals rely when connecting to a virtual universe. So we could say that cyberanthropology has taken a more or less global look at our behavior online. By referring to our previous experiences, to our social belonging and to our preferences that we perform in real life, the anthropologist-or rather the cyberanthrpologist-highlights the importance of a cyberculture which could be complementary or quite contradictory to a real culture in our offline experience. In other words, cyberanthropology, or the anthropology of cyberculture, works in a holistic and open way while taking into consideration several aspects of human life. If anthropology studies the difference or the distinction between the local vs. international or the individual vs. the global, cyberanthropology, or the anthropology of cyberculture, gives anthropology the chance for the latter to renew itself, without 'it reaches a premature closure of the lines of research that are limited only to the self and the other.