Ethnography attends to relations among people, practices, and the technologies that mediate them. Central to this method is the duality of roles ethnographers navigate as researchers and participants and as outsiders and insiders. However, the rise of digital platforms has introduced new opportunities as well as practical and ethical challenges that reshape these dualities across hybrid media environments spanning both online and offline contexts. Drawing on two case studies of VRChat and WhatsApp, we examine how ethnographers employ diverse tactics to study both enduring and emerging socio-cultural issues of race and caste, particularly those that form what are often called publics. We propose emergent relationality as a key analytic for understanding the mutual shaping of ethnographers, platforms, and publics. In this work, emergent relationality offers registers for analyzing how positionality and hybrid media environments constitute and condition what can be accessed, articulated, and made public.

翻译：民族志关注人与人、实践与技术之间的中介关系。该方法的核心在于民族志研究者作为研究者与参与者、局外人与局内人的双重角色定位。然而，数字平台的兴起在带来新机遇的同时，也引发了实践与伦理层面的挑战，重塑了跨越线上与线下场景的混合媒介环境中的双重性。本研究基于VRChat与WhatsApp的双案例研究，探讨民族志研究者如何运用多元策略考察种族与种姓等持续存在及新兴的社会文化议题——特别是那些构成所谓"公众"的议题。我们提出"涌现性关联"作为理解民族志研究者、平台与公众相互形塑的关键分析框架。在本研究中，涌现性关联为分析以下问题提供了理论路径：研究者立场性与混合媒介环境如何共同建构并制约可触及、可表达、可公开化的内容范畴。