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The characteristic smell that makes you think of a summer cabin and the warm feeling when touching a wooden surface. It was such sensory insights that we hoped to obtain during a study with the aim to explore people’s experiences of living in wooden houses. But then the COVID pandemic hit. Instead, we had to find ways of entering people’s homes through digital means and at a distance. One day during the study we received a message from one of the informants via the app that was used to collect snapshots of their homes:

“ (..) But I see no reason in showcasing my private home on video and if you can’t proceed without it, I’m done with your silly study…”

With the phone in the field, what had suddenly happened?

This submission explores these digitally mediated encounters with a post-phenomenological lens, as it can give us insight as to what happens when trying to make ethnography resilient to change. By reflecting on technology’s mediating role, we can harvest its great potentials for strengthening the ethnographic toolbox.

Keywords: mobile probe, technology, sensory, relations, mediation

A multi-storey wooden apartment complex in Denmark where the study was conducted.
Photo by Laura Lynggaard Nielsen.

Signe Sørensen is a Techno-Anthropologist at the Alexandra Institute. She is driven by understanding technologies and humans, and what happens in this fascinating amalgamation. In her work she always strives to be a voice for the users – the humans – when developing and seeking new technological possibilities. Understanding people’s needs and wishes when developing technological solutions that really makes a difference is what makes her world kick-ass.

Citation: 2022 EPIC Proceedings, ISSN 1559-8918, https://www.epicpeople.org/epic