Bathroom stories: Capturing embodied practices through screen‐mediated relatedness

Abstract

Online ethnography is often criticized for being less immersive than traditional ethnography. However, this article argues that the digital medium offers a distinctive way to connect researchers with their interlocutors. Online ethnography can help balance being intimate while respecting research participants by maintaining appropriate distance in anthropological fieldwork. The article presents a case study of bathrooms during the Covid‐19 pandemic. It shows that online ethnography, which only allows access to what is seen and heard on the screen, creates a more limited, transient, flexible and ambiguous relationship with the research participants. This unique form of relatedness makes them more open to sharing their stories, images and videos about their bodily practices in bathrooms. The article emphasizes the potential of digital research methods to reveal the details of embodied practices. It invites anthropologists to explore the different ways of relating to digital and physical spaces in research.