Antropologiia tsifrovogo goroda: k voprosu o vybore metoda

Abstract

The digitalization of urban space makes the scholar of the city face new objectives, and not all of these objectives have to do with the mediatized objects of study that are emerging. Epistemological challenges related to the study of digital city’s hybrid space are first and foremost arising out of the need to rethink and reconceptualize the entire scope of research tools in order to reach the interdisciplinary compromise between urban studies and new media studies. The authors discuss two main approaches – those of technological centrism and anthropology – to the study of interconnections among digital culture, mobile gadgets, networks, and city space. Attention is further paid to the issues in the study of mobility in the city, that are pinpointed by adherents of both approaches. The authors argue in favor of the anthropological approach as the appropriate methodological foundation for contemporary research on urban transformations.