Digital inequalities and ethnography: the internet, its uses, possibilities and agency in Rio de Janeiro`s favelas

• Grant number: 21/06857-7
• Support Opportunities: Research Grants - Young Investigators Grants
• Start date: November 01, 2022
• End date: October 31, 2027
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Anthropology
• Agreement: MCTI/MC
• Principal Investigator: Carolina Parreiras Silva
• Grantee: Carolina Parreiras Silva
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• City of the host institution: São Paulo
• Associated researchers: Bárbara Geraldo de Castro ; David Baiao Nemer ; Heloisa Buarque de Almeida ; Lorena Mochel Reis ; Maria Filomena Gregori ; Matheus Gonçalves França ; Michele Escoura Bueno ; PATRICIA PEREIRA PAVEIS ; Paula Mendes Lacerda
• Associated scholarship(s): 25/24292-8 - Mapping data from ICT Households, ICT COVID-19, ICT Centers for Public Access and ICT Education, BP.TT; 24/13980-8 - Analysis of platform terms of use: inequalities, literacy and platformization, BP.IC; 24/00637-3 - Communication and scientific dissemination about research in favelas: multiple perspectives on social and digital inequalities, BP.JC; + associated scholarships 24/00638-0 - Communication and scientific dissemination on research in favelas: multiple perspectives on social and digital inequalities, BP.JC; 23/14106-7 - Survey of public policies and public-private partnership on digital inclusion, BP.TT; 23/04647-0 - Bibliographic survey in databases on smartphones, Whatsapp, Facebook and apps, BP.TT; 22/13233-2 - Violence and digital inequalities in favelas in Rio de Janeiro from an ethnographic perspective, BP.JP - associated scholarships

Abstract

This research project was developed under the Call for Proposals: "Strategic Research on the Internet" and in the modality of Jovem Pesquisador. The project's main focus is to understand, from an ethnographic, intersectional, and multidisciplinary perspective, different dynamics and everyday social processes that will allow for advances in discussions on digital inequalities in Brazil, trying to understandif and how they are linked to broader social inequalities. Based on this objective, the project proposes to create the research area "Digital Anthropology" in the Department of Anthropology at USP, and the LETec - Ethnographic Laboratory for Technological and Digital Studies, also linked to the Department of Anthropology - USP. The goal is based on discussions of digital inequalities from different axes, going beyond the issue of access to technological devices and connection networks. In this sense, the uses, flows, and meanings that subjects give to their everyday experiences of using technology are of interest. The project also seeks, through research associated with LETec (Principal Researcher, Associate Researchers, and TT, IC, and Masters scholarship holders), to discuss theoretical, methodological, and ethical issues, seeking to analytically advance on discussions and nomenclatures of digital inclusion/exclusion, showing how digital inequalities is a better term; discuss the profitability of ethnography as a set of research techniques that allows for a more localized understanding of digital experiences; invest in technological and more democratic forms of scientific dissemination; and give continuity to the Principal Researcher's internationalization networks. The basic assumption of this proposal is that, if we want to democratize the internet in Brazil and understand its dynamics and processes, we cannot do so without understanding countless social and digital inequalities. (AU)

Scientific publications

(References retrieved automatically from Web of Science and SciELO through information on FAPESP grants and their corresponding numbers as mentioned in the publications by the authors)

CAROLINA PARREIRAS. Reflexões sobre big data, sexualidades, datificação e moralidades no pornô digital: a “novinha” como categoria de classificação e indexação. Mana, v. 30, n. 2, 2024-09-13. (21/06857-7, 22/13233-2)