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Based on research in massively multiplayer online games and high-level raiding, it examines how entry, learning, discovery, embodied engagement, accountability, affect, and reflection appear as shared stances. The article also expands ethnography’s interpretive possibilities by engaging related scholarship on play, performance, and participatory inquiry.",{"@graph":69,"@context":122},[70,84,105],{"@type":71,"itemListElement":72},"BreadcrumbList",[73,77,79,82],{"item":74,"name":75,"@type":76,"position":8},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":78,"name":9,"@type":76,"position":14},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/",{"item":80,"name":15,"@type":76,"position":81},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/literature/",3,{"item":83,"name":65,"@type":76,"position":19},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/ethnography-as-play-playing-ethnography/591870/",{"url":83,"name":65,"@type":85,"image":86,"author":91,"headline":65,"publisher":94,"fileFormat":97,"inLanguage":63,"description":67,"dateModified":98,"datePublished":99,"encodingFormat":97,"isAccessibleForFree":100,"interactionStatistic":101},"DigitalDocument",{"url":87,"@type":88,"width":89,"height":90},"https://docshare.wps.com/thumbnails/ethnography-as-play-playing-ethnography/591870.png","ImageObject",300,407,{"name":92,"@type":93},"Mabel","Person",{"url":74,"name":95,"@type":96},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-10-21","2026-10-15",true,{"@type":102,"interactionType":103,"userInteractionCount":8},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":104},"ViewAction",{"@type":106,"mainEntity":107},"FAQPage",[108,114,118],{"name":109,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":111},"What central relationship does the author claim between ethnography and play?","Question",{"text":112,"@type":113},"The author argues that ethnography is a kindred of play, with shared practices and resonant ways of engaging, reflecting, and making meaning.","Answer",{"name":115,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":116},"What gaming context does the author primarily draw on?",{"text":117,"@type":113},"The argument draws mainly on play in a semistructured multiplayer digital environment, informed by research on massively multiplayer online games and coordinated high-level raiding.",{"name":119,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":120},"Which moments in ethnographic work resemble moments in game play?",{"text":121,"@type":113},"Navigating entry processes, learning to inhabit a space, figuring out how the system works, and intensely experiencing discovery—along with frustrations and embodied, affective engagement—are described as common in both.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":83,"og:type":124,"og:title":65,"og:site_name":95,"og:description":67},"article",{"robots":126,"canonical":83},"index,follow",{"doc_id":128,"site_id":62},591870,1792612179,{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":131},{"doc_id":128,"user_id":132,"nickname":92,"user_avatar":133,"doc_module":4,"category_id":14,"category_name":15,"doc_title":65,"doc_description":67,"doc_content":134,"file_id":135,"file_url":136,"file_type":137,"file_size":138,"view_count":8,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":8,"is_downloadable":8,"audit_status":8,"page_count":139,"language":140,"language_code":63,"site_id":62,"html_lang":63,"table_of_contents":141,"faqs":142,"seo_title":143,"seo_description":67,"update_tm":144,"read_time":145},7971474920318,"https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/avatar/74000ee537e6b0ca360?x-image-process=image/resize,m_fixed,w_180,h_180&k=1788430171632181674","Ethnography as Play  \n•  \nT. L. Taylor  \nThe author argues that ethnography is a kindred of play. Based on her research of play in digital gaming environments, she draws several parallels between the practices of ethnography and the practices of play. She explores the complexities of play in games and expands our understanding of the work of ethnography as play. Key words: ethnography; fieldwork; games;  \nplay; research  \nPlaying Ethnography  \nI began thinking about play as a lens for ethnographic practice years ago in conjunction with a workshop entitled “In the Game: Ethnographic Relationships, Mediation, and Knowledge” at the Association of Internet Researchers conference. In an intensive inquiry, the workshop participants investigated digital environments. We reflected on prior fieldwork each of us had done with a special eye on such topics as contiguity, accountability, affect, embodiment, and scholarly practices. As I revisited my field notes on massively multiplayer-online games and high-level raiding (i.e., coordinated group action in these spaces), I was struck by the moments my research process seemed similar to playing a game. I began to consider the features that the practices of play in these spacesand the practices of ethnography broadly shared.  \nI should point out that massively multiplayer-online gaming strongly influences my notion of play for the purposes of this article. Although I do see important connections to what we might call free-form play, my argument draws primarily on the experience of play within a semistructured digital environment rooted in a multiplayer frame with collective action and meaning making. There may be fruitful ways to consider broader gaming genres in relation to ethnography, but they lay outside my scope here.  \n33  \nAmerican Journal of Play, volume 14, number 1 © 2022 by The Strong  \nContact T. L. Taylor at [tl@tltaylor.com](tl@tltaylor.com)  \nNavigating entry processes and learning to inhabit a space, puzzling out how the system works and its forms of discovery, intensely enjoying the experience despite its many frustrations and failures, moving through it all in embodied and affective ways, grappling with unknowns, and eventually setting the experience aside and moving onto something new are common moments in both ethnography and play. Stances of inquiry, engagement, and reflection speak to a resonance between the activities. I began to think about how they may be kindred spirits, how we move into and inhabit each in often similar ways. I thought about how my own research practices contoured alongside play, as well as about moments where that companionship broke down. And I wondered if one of the reasons ethnographic work has been so generative in online gaming spaces and virtual worlds broadly is its resonance with play.  \nI am certainly not alone in thinking about how ethnography might be fruitfully illuminated by comparison to other forms of expression and inquiry (Marcus and Fischer 1986) . Throughout this article, I use the language of ethnography not simply to denote the writing up of fieldwork and the ensuing monograph but also the assemblage of research practices and techniques ethnographers undertake. My own training is in sociology, not anthropology, and the tradition of qualitative research I associate with ethnographic work is linked to that training. My notion of ethnography as play also leans on other explorations of fieldwork and researcher experience, approaches that offer another way of looking at the subjectivity of the researcher and how the work is undertaken, helping reframe the practice of ethnography.  \nManning (1983), for example, asked what might happen if we understood the anthropologist not as priest (“guardian, interpreter, and evangelist”) but instead as a clown. As he noted,“A good clown is like a good anthropologist. He or she observes the social world as a participant but is clumsily integrated into the surroundings and thus ironically detached.","cbCaihTU4e3qJyFH","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaihTU4e3qJyFH","pdf",164635,25,"English","# Ethnography as Play\n## Playing Ethnography","[{\"question\":\"What central relationship does the author claim between ethnography and play?\",\"answer\":\"The author argues that ethnography is a kindred of play, with shared practices and resonant ways of engaging, reflecting, and making meaning.\"},{\"question\":\"What gaming context does the author primarily draw on?\",\"answer\":\"The argument draws mainly on play in a semistructured multiplayer digital environment, informed by research on massively multiplayer online games and coordinated high-level raiding.\"},{\"question\":\"Which moments in ethnographic work resemble moments in game play?\",\"answer\":\"Navigating entry processes, learning to inhabit a space, figuring out how the system works, and intensely experiencing discovery—along with frustrations and embodied, affective engagement—are described as common in both.\"}]","Ethnography as Play - Playing Ethnography | PDF",1792073373,39]