Coming of Age in Second Life

Tom Boellstorff is professor of anthropology at the University of California, Irvine. He is the coauthor of Ethnography and Virtual Worlds: A Handbook of Method (Princeton), and coeditor of Data, Now Bigger and Better!

List of Illustrations ix Preface to the New Paperback Edition xi Acknowledgments xxix PART I: Setting the Virtual Stage 1 CHAPTER 1: The Subject and Scope of This Inquiry 3 Arrivals and departures--Everyday Second Life--Terms of discussion--The emergence of virtual worlds--The posthuman and the human--What this, a book, does. CHAPTER 2: History 32 Prehistories of the virtual--Histories of virtual technology--A personal virtual history--Histories of virtual worlds--Histories of cybersociality research--Techne. CHAPTER 3: Method 60 Virtual worlds in their own terms--Anthropology and ethnography--Participant observation--Interviews, focus groups, and beyond the platform--Ethics--Claims and reflexivity. PART II: Culture in a Virtual World 87 CHAPTER 4: Place and Time 89 Visuality and land--Builds and objects--Lag--Afk--Immersion--Presence. CHAPTER 5: Personhood 118 The self--The life course--Avatars and alts--Embodiment--Gender and race--Agency. CHAPTER 6: Intimacy 151 Language--Friendship--Sexuality--Love--Family--Addiction. CHAPTER 7: Community 179 The event--The group--Kindness--Griefing--Between virtual worlds--Beyond virtual worlds. PART III: The Age of Techne 203 CHAPTER 8: Political Economy 205 Creationist capitalism--Money and labor--Property--Governance--Inequality--Platform and social form. CHAPTER 9: The Virtual 237 The virtual human--Culture and the online--Simulation--Fiction and design--The massively multiple--Toward an anthropology of virtual worlds. Glossary 251 Notes 255 Works Cited 271 Index 303