The very first night I spent in my field site in North Chile, the national team qualified for the World Cup. I had no television, no radio, and internet only through my smartphone. But I knew every time the team scored. Horns honked, dogs barked, whistles cut through the evening air, a dull roar of shouts bouncing off one another between the small homes, and six floor apartment buildings hung around the city like the fog that rolls in every afternoon from the Pacific Ocean. When the opposing team scored, you could hear the low rumble of grumbling viewers. By the game’s end, the horns were honking again, fireworks were being set off, and I ventured to my balcony to see people waving large flags in the street. 

On this first night it was very clear that the national fútbol team was important in this site. But I didn’t realize I would eventually see a contradiction in this. The widespread support and excitement about the team is very surprising given that most people in Northern Chile feel about they are often forgotten by the wealthier or more cosmopolitan people in the central region of the country, and are disenfranchised from national politics. My fieldsite is a working-class marginal city just seven kilometers up a steep hill from the region’s major port city, and those perched on the hill feel they have been politically discarded even within the region. It was recently voted the least liveable urban area in Chile, in part because, as I’ve written before, there is very little that is pleasing about the aesthetics of the place. Yet when it comes to fútbol, their very visible practices—wearing red fútbol jerseys, setting off fireworks, and posting a great deal on social networking sites—stand in stark contrast to their usually minimal visual expression.   

A week before Chile’s first game, Facebook was filled with humorous memes related to the world cup, from comparing the team’s bald coach, to bald reggaetón singer Pitbull. Others, in anticipation of a match against the Australian team, featured pictures of kangaroos in compromising positions. On game day, the city becomes a sea of red. At the local informal market, I noticed Chilea fútbol jerseys being sold at the beginning of June. The five supermarkets in town also offer jerseys for both the national team, as well as select others, including Brazil, Argentina, and Spain. Hours before an afternoon game begins, the sounds of plastic trumpets and car horns fill the air. The smell of meat being cooked on grills makes my stomach growl. Children, wearing pint-sized jerseys, and with faces painted like the flag, ride their bikes around the neighborhood. Seemingly every middle-aged man walking down the street carries a flag and a case of Cristal or Escudo beer, either on his way home from the corner store or to his friend’s house. Young men, and middle-aged mothers alike invite friends over to their homes to watch via Facebook post, often enticing them with photos of beer cans or food accompanied by a Chilean flag or pelota. 

When the game starts, the whole family, and maybe some friends or neighbors gather around the flat screen television that’s positioned in the living room, or more often in the kitchen. Younger brothers are forced to wear silly wigs of hats that look like pelotas. The streets become quiet for a few minutes, until the first big play. During the first game, Chile scored after 12 minutes and during the second, Chile barely missed a goal about five minutes into the game. Once viewers have something to cheer about, the world erupts with trumpets and yells of “conchetumare” (a somewhat all-purpose expletive). After every score or close save, my Facebook feed instantly fills with simple statements such as “weon” (somewhat equivalent to ‘dude’), “vamos chile mierda” [let’s go chile. shit!], and “goooollllll”. After a victory, of which I was fortunate enough to see two, whole families exit to the street to “see what’s going on.” Fireworks are lit, people walk to the nearest plaza or to the downtown area, singing the national anthem or simply changing “Chi Chi Chi Le Le Le. Viva Chile!” Instagram is filled with photos of the crowd, selfies while wrapped in the flag, and screen captures of the television displaying the national team. A few hours later, after they’ve finished their twelve hour shift, workers in the nearby copper mines post their cell phone videos of hundreds of their coworkers erupting as they watch a goal being scored from the dining hall of the mining operation. 

These practices are much like they would be in countless other neighborhoods around the world. Except that these practices defy two of the major factors I see defining daily life in this place: an absence of attention to aesthetics, and a feeling of disenfranchisement from the nation. So what is it about sport, or perhaps the World Cup specifically, that inspires this transformation? Most people have told me they are particularly excited by the World Cup this year because Chile’s team is good, and because it is a nice reason to share time with family. Others suggest Chileans have a “spirit of clawing fanaticism…to fight and overcome hardships.” This explanation makes more sense of course in the specific context of my fieldsite where being an underdog is a way of life. Chile is a team that usually qualifies about once a decade. They often find themselves in the second round (of 16) in the tournament, but have not placed since 1962. Among the world’s best 32 fútbol teams, they are not a total long-shot, but neither are they a sure thing. And this year, being placed in what some call a “group of death,” makes that fight to overcome hardship even more exhilarating.

Yet Chileans have had reasons to hope. Rachel Riley of Countdown statistically determined that based on characteristics of past World Cup champions, Chile was most likely to win. Northern Chileans also took it as a good omen that their first game was to be played in Cuiabá which according to reports holds 33,000, inspiring allusions to the 33 miners that were trapped underground in the region just after the World Cup of 2010. Though the stadium actually holds over 39,000, Chilean sports journalists repeatedly began reports form the stadium with “Estamos bien en el estadio los 33 mil” [We are well in the stadium, the 33 thousand of us], echoing the miners’ first communication with surface search parties “Estamos bien en el refugion, los 33” [We are well in the shelter, the 33 of us]. The 33 miners even made a video in the weeks leading up to the World Cup kickoff, widely shared on social media, in which they declare, “Spain is tough? Holland is tough? We don’t fear the ‘death group’! We don’t care about death because we defeated death before!”

For more English language info on the commercial, see José Manuel Simian's writing on the NPR blog.

The Chilean national team now prepares to face home team Brazil in the second round, sure to be a tough match. Northern Chileans prepare with their red t-shirts, silly hats, 6-packs of beer, and meat to be grilled. Fútbol might just be an excuse to enjoy a rousing afternoon or evening with friends and family for some, but for others, the national team embodies the struggles and hopes of daily life. Links circulate now, about strategies Chile could use to defeat favorite, Brazil, and people are already making plans for a Saturday afternoon game. While the outcome remains unsure, it is certain that the city will be awash in red, and if by change the Chileans manage to win, I’ll join the crowd in fireworks, singing, and general merriment in the small plaza near my house. Of course, for once I’ll have to worry about my clothing. I have make sure my red t-shirt is clean for Saturday. 

a shorter version of this post appears on the WHY WE POST blog at University College London

Sometimes, leaving “the field” and returning can be incredibly productive. Sometimes it is because it gives you time to think and plan, while in a different mindset. Other times, it is because the return throws differences into stark relief with the life one leads in other places.

Both have been true for me in the last three days. After spending a month at University College London with my colleagues, I have a much better grasp on where The Global Social Media Impact Study is going, where my part fits in, and how it relates to the other eight fieldsites involved.

But what is even more impressionable, possibly even phenomenologically so, is the sense of aesthetics that I immediately notice upon returning. In London I lived in a quaint house with IKEA furniture, on a quiet little lane in a central suburb with plenty of independently owned shops on the high street. I wore my favorite uniform—1960s style shift dresses, leggings, and mid-calf height boots—almost every day. I got a haircut, and bought new mascara, and an old guilty pleasure of Body Shop tea tree oil face wash (fully acknowledging the problematic politics of the Body Shop).

In essence I lived, looked, and thus felt, a little more like myself. The nine of us on the project collectively wrote a blog on “real methods in anthropology” wherein we describe the ways we are a bit like chameleons, and do certain things to more closely fit in as we live in our fieldsites. While this may appear as “inauthentic” to some people, we know that the self in everyday life is always a performance (see Goffman 1959), and that people are always a different version of themselves in different contexts. Yet, returning to Alto Hospicio has reminded me just how different this self is from the selves I perform in Chicago, Washington DC, La Paz, and London.

Being away has also helped me to pinpoint what it is about this place that makes me so different, and perhaps fortunately, I think what I’ve realized has quite extensive impacts for my research as well. Put simply, the aesthetics of Alto Hospicio are incredibly different from those in the other cities where I like to spend time. 

At first glance, I think to myself ‘This place has no sense of aesthetics.’ But obviously this is not true. Plenty of people tell me that they have personal styles and tastes. Houses are often painted bright colors on the outside and decorated with plenty of artificial flowers on the inside. The new municipal building in the city is architecturally pleasing. Cars are clearly modified with exterior lights, and decals. Clothing ranges from black tshirts displaying heavy metal band names to sunny beach attire. These are styles, not just reflections of function.

Indeed, to me, these styles appear as an absence. This has caused me to ruminate on what makes “middle class North Atlantic” style so different. And my initial supposition, is that it has something to do with nostalgia. My parents live in an Arts and Crafts era bungalow and have thus decorated the place in furniture reflecting that era. My best friend is slightly obsessed with Danish Mid-Century Modern design, which has influenced his furniture, clothing, and even the brand of headphones he owns. As a child, my favorite book--Anne of Green Gables—created a desire for my bedroom to have a certain country Victorian feel to it. And since my early teens I’ve enjoyed sifting through second hand shops for vintage clothing (often influenced by tv shows, from the Brady Bunch, to the Mary Tyler Moore Show, and most recently Mad Men). 

In many ways we (in the cosmopolitan centers I know well) live in an age of nostalgia, however convoluted this form of nostalgia may be. We live in the age of Steampunk and Hipsters. A recent trip with my sister to the H&M clothing store in her Madrid neighborhood revealed hundreds of square feet of fashion that reminded me of my high school closet (the mid-late 1990s, for anyone who’s counting). Instagram, which appears in the square format reminiscent of now-defunct Polaroid photos, offers a plethora of filters with names like, Lo Fi and 1977 that presumably (and in my opinion, often successfully) give photos an aesthetic quality similar to those home photos of the 1960s-80s. Films like Wes Anderson's and Spike Jonze's (aside from his frequent forays into Jackass-ery) trade in nostalgic art design, and even more mainstream movies like American Hustle and The Great Gatsby use their historical settings to forefront nostalgic aesthetics. Similarly, music-of which I represent possibly the least qualified person in the world to analyze-as of late (or maybe for much longer?) has seen plenty of popular acts that pull from eras gone by (ie Sharon Van Etten, , or that damn Pharmakon remake of Nancy Sinatra/Sonny & Cher's 'Bang Bang' that no one else seems to be getting tired of). Of course, these examples are not coincidental. Indeed, nostalgia is a calculated art produced in mass by Ad executives. 

This is not to say that all aesthetics in the North Atlantic are a product of nostalgia. There are others that reflect “foreign influence” such as Japanese inspired home interiors, or Ikea minimalism. Plenty of clothing in the “latest style” is made from new synthetic fabrics in styles that have not been broached in previous eras. And much recent architecture and car design has reflected 'green' or 'eco aesthetics,' that combines cuteness (pastel colors), efficiency (small=more fuel efficient), aerodynamics, functionality (hatchbacks carry more in a smaller space), and a sense of futurism. Yet, often, to me these types of style also appear as a sort of nostalgia for former visions of the future, as they appear in representations such as The Jetsons or 2001: A Space Odyssey (but maybe that’s just me?).

In sum, these forms of nostalgia appear as absent in Alto Hospicio. Instagram photos present uninspired subjects in mundane settings without much attention to the filters or other enhancements available in the application. Facebook posts—both photos and text—appear to lack curation. One person’s clothing style is indistinguishable from the next (at least to my eyes). Houses each equally resemble lego blocks (as Daniel Miller commented to me). And even the city’s parks and plazas do very little to appear as natural refuges from city life.

The challenge however, is to first, find a way of describing this form of aesthetics without implicitly privileging the forms of North Atlantic aesthetics I described earlier, both in language and ideology. And second, to find what are the underlying currents that define these forms of aesthetics that are present. I certainly would not characterize the aesthetics of Alto Hospicio as a form of Protestant asceticism (see Weber 1958). But it is a new city, so perhaps it would be naïve to think that nostalgia would be an important structure of feeling there. Most families in Alto Hospicio are working-class so frugality and functionality may be an important part of aesthetics.

I am more than welcome to comments that might propose different forms of aesthetics, whether they be possibilities for Alto Hospicio, or presented in contrast to what I have outlined here!

Today, I had a video interview with Pearson publishing as an "expert" on social media for an English language textbook supplement. After a month spent discussing initial insights with my Global Social Media Impact Study colleagues, I was able to answer with all fieldsites in mind, so I thought I might share my answers here.

Where do you work and what do you do?
I am an ethnographer in Alto Hospicio, Chile. Alto Hospicio is in the far north of the country, about 4 hours from the Peruvian and Bolivian borders, and 26 hours by bus, from Santiago in the center of the country. As an ethnographer, I combine many different research methods. The most basic is participant observation, which simply means I participate in daily life in Alto Hospicio. I eat meals with people, attend community events, buy goods in the local markets, drop by locals’ workplaces, and spend leisure time with people from the city. Second, I conduct questionaires with as many people as possible in order to get a sense of the overall trends in both general life and media use among residents. I also conduct semi-structured interviews with people in the city, to get more detailed information than is possible with a survey. Finally, in studying social media, I analyze and interact with people through facebook, Instagram, whatsapp, twitter, and any other media forms that are significant in my site.

What research project are you working on at the moment?
I am part of the global social media impact study, which is comprised of 9 sights on three different continents. Researchers come from two additional continents as well. Our aim is to provide qualitative as well as quantitative information on the variation of social media usage around the world. Each researcher uses the same methods I mentioned before in order to assess the trends in social media in each site. In essence we hope to fulfill the aspirations of anthropologists to be comparative in a way that has never been done.

What is the scope and scale of the social media research project?
Our scope, as the name implies is global. Specifically, our dissemination plans include translating materials into 8 different languages, which will include popular level books, short films, and more academic texts, particularly on collaborative research and specifically comparative studies.

Where has the research been carried out?
In addition to my site in northern Chile, researchers are also working in rural Brazil, Trinidad, rural England, South East Italy, Southeast Turkey, South India, rural China, and industrial China. We have chosen small cities, developing sites, and rural areas specifically because much research has been done on the use of new media in cosmopolitan centers, but we feel that our sites provide a better view of the ways “average” people across the world are engaging with social media.

Can you tell us what (interim) conclusions you’ve reached about the impact of social media? Does it vary much from country to country? What factors influence the use of social media?
Our team has developed a list of 30 initial insights, but the most important is by far, that contrary to some early predictions, social media specifically and the internet more broadly have not at all resulted in the homogenization of people around the world. In looking at social media from each of our nine sites, it is very clear that the same platform is used in completely different ways in different places. Essentially, one can not talk about what content is like on Facebook as a whole, but must specify that facebook becomes something very different in Trinidad than it does in Turkey. The page format is the same, but the content barely resembles that of another location. Even global trends such as the selfie or meme are used quite differently in different regions.

We also see clearly that online and offline should not be considered two separate domains, rather like phonecalls or letters, online posting is just another part of everyday life.

It is also common to assume that modern life has created movement from an idealized sort of community to more individualism. However, we see that social media often leads to reconnections between people, or even entirely new connections. One such example is the earthquake that recently happened in my fieldsite. In the weeks that followed when basic services such as water, electricity, and petrol were suspended, as well as later rebuilding efforts, social media became a key way in which people organized, planned, and even attempted to create collective representations of their plight. Social media also often reinforces group memberships such as the family, clan, caste, and tribe.

Our studies of national political events suggest a limited impact of social media on politics in our local fieldsites. Specifically, we have followed riots and protests in Brazil, Trinidad, and Turkey which suggest a much more limited impact in the actual fieldsites. Our evidence suggests that social media may have an impact with politicised and more metropolitan groups but we do not see it as an instrument of politicisation. Instead, we find social media used for the everyday local politics of the sites. In fact, the public (but also personal) nature of social media tends to make them conservative and apolitical in many of our sites.

We have also found that digital equality does not necessarily have explicit consequences for offline equality. In most cases there is greater popular access to the communication technology and online worlds which may have substantial impacts upon previously excluded populations, especially with ownership of smartphone. But this may not make a difference in the degree to which populations are excluded or oppressed in offline spheres.

Has Social Media had an influence on what we demand from mainstream media?
I do believe that social media has changed traditional forms of media to an extent. We use the term polymedia to discuss the ways that all media must be viewed in the context of other media. The classic example is that if a young person is going to break up with a romantic partner, there are several communications options available. Depending on the situation, they may do so in person, over the phone, via text message, simply changing their relationship status on facebook, or even posting a picture of themself with another partner on Instagram. In light of these options, each new form of media must find it’s own place, which in turn often changes the ways that the others are used. Television clips are reproduced on youtube and then posted on facebook. Radio programs may be made into podcasts and then sent via email. Telephone calls may be replaced by text messages or recorded voice messages sent on Whatsapp. But possibly the most interesting thing we have found is that very few media actually die out. Rather, as new media emerge, their functions simply shift.

Has Social Media opened up a niche for new kinds of media?
In light of this discussion on polymedia, it’s important to note that the landscape of social media is constantly changing. New programs are introduced constantly, which shifts the ways others are used. However, we find that social media has not entirely changed the types of media people consume. Those who are avid news readers may get their news via social media rather than television or newspaper now, but those who didn’t read the newspaper before are unlikely to read much news simply because of social media. Likewise, people who used to buy music cds may now use sites such as spotify, or share music videos they find on youtube, but those who did not place much importance on music before likely will not.

How do you think social media is going to develop in future?  Do you think it is going to become a more or less important part of our lives?
I think we are already seeing that social media has transformed the relationship between offline and online to an extent that the two cannot really be separated anymore. I think this will deepen even further in the future. Social media are used to organize real social events, or replace them when participants are distant. Much like telephone calls or letters, social media does mediate interactions, but that does not make those interactions any less authentically social. And social media, as it becomes less distinct from “non social media life,” will certainly remain important in people’s lives. It is a major form of sociality, and sociality is something that makes humans what they are.

Do you use social media much yourself?  How important is it for your work/social life?  Could you live without it?
I do use social media, and obviously it’s incredibly important for my work. There are days I would like to take a break from it, but that’s not really possible. For my social life, however, as someone who lives on a continent different from that where I grew up, and has work colleagurs literally all over the world, it is incredibly important for me to keep in contact with friends and family. Obviously, I could live without it, but I do feel that most of the time, it really enriches the communication in my life, and allows me to stay close to people I wouldn’t be able to otherwise.

Has Social Media influenced how we absorb/ digest information, or the kind of information we’re interested in?
I do think social media has allowed us to preference visual forms of information moreso than previous forms. We have found that memes are incredibly important for communicating everything from politics, religion, and morality, to our innermost emotional states. Similarly, the ability to post pictures has allowed us to represent ourselves visually, and even to curate the aesthetic we hope to present to the world. However, there is little evidence that it has changed the  types of information we are interested in. As I stated before, those who were not interested in politics before social media are unlikely to be persuaded of their import. People who did not read the news or listen to music will not do so simply because of social media. And possibly most clearly, across all of our sites, we have found that social media is most often used to alleviate boredom and for gossip. Those are human tendencies that have much longer histories than social media, and I think its clear that there is continuity in the information people want, whether it is on social media or from their friends face to face.

This weekend I presented a paper at the Royal Anthropological Institute's conference on Anthropology and Photography, titled #Instaterremoto: Tracing Crisis through Instagram Photography. As part of the conference I was given the opportunity to showcase my own photography, and exhibited twelve photos under the same title. Here I reproduce that exhibit, which can also be found at the RAI's Flickr feed here. 

On the night of 1 April 2014, Alto Hospicio suffered an 8.2 earthquake. The city was without power and water for several days and many were left homeless. Because I am researching social media usage in the city, I have paid particular attention to the photos that (usually young) residents have uploaded to Facebook and Instagram. I began adding my own images to these websites with similar hashtags to contribute to the body of imagery by residents who were were many times calling for more attention and help from the Chilean national government. In many ways, the people of Alto Hospicio felt forgotten, and were using social media to speak to whoever would listen. I took these photographs, featured here, in solidarity with others who were using their smartphone cameras to claim visibility and call for attention to the disaster.

The text of my paper presentation at RAI will be posted soon. Until then, here is the narrative of my experience of the earthquake. 
part one
part two
part three
part four
part five