Trace Ethnography Workshop: iConference 2015

This workshop introduces participants to trace ethnography, building a network of scholars interested in the collection and interpretation of trace data and distributed documentary practices. The intended audience is broad, and participants need not have any existing experience working with trace data from either qualitative or quantitative approaches. The workshop provides an interactive introduction to the background, theories, methods, and applications–present and future–of trace ethnography. Participants with more experience in this area will demonstrate how they apply these techniques in their own research, discussing various issues as they arise. The workshop is intended to help researchers identify documentary traces, plan for their collection and analysis, and further formulate trace ethnography as it is currently conceived. In all, this workshop will support the advancement of boundaries, theories, concepts, and applications in trace ethnography, identifying the diversity of approaches that can be assembled around the idea of ‘trace ethnography’ within the iSchool community