Revisited: "Many to Many"
Creators Juliana Friend & Seth Lu demonstrating Many to Many
Many to Many is a digital, interactive ethnographic archive built by Juliana Friend (Anthropology) and Seth Lu (Computer Science). The tool harnesses digital media tools to promote collaboration in the production and circulation of ethnographic knowledge.
A collaboration with the Berkeley Center for New Media (BCNM) and Digital Humanities at Berkeley, this experimental ethnography tests the possibilities and limitations of digital technologies for combating communicative inequalities (Cf. Briggs and Mantini-Briggs 2016). It also explores how reflexive orientations to modes of circulation shape the kinds of self-presentation we enact through conversation.
At the launch, Juliana introduced the project and walked the audience through the website, pointing out the design choices that have conversations automatically play as a mouse scrolls over their image or description. She described how users can upload metadata, transcripts, audio, and video, before Seth discussed the commenting options that will soon be implemented on the site.
Juliana then invited post-doctoral and a graduate student to each play their research recordings currently hosted on the site. A discussion followed on the use of the site as a medium for their particular research, including the ethics and possibilities of this platform. Much excitement developed as the audience brainstormed ways to take advantage of the intertextuality afforded by the site, including new anthropological remixes to comment on the state of scholarship.
Check out the photos below!
