Smart researching in criminology: Virtual ethnography at the edge

Abstract

This chapter provides a critical perspective on the use of social media platforms as crucial epistemic resources for field researchers in criminology. Ethnographers have often been sceptical about their immersion in online settings because of the restraints in engaging experientially and emotionally with research subjects. Virtual ethnography is underestimated as a method of engagement to achieve the immediacy of crime. The chapter aims to debunk this misconception by highlighting my experiences with virtual ethnography on Instagram researching the meanings of crime within a deviant youth subculture in Italy, known as Italian trap culture. Readers are led on a journey towards a criminological verstehen through my experiential and emotional online immersion in the lived reality of deviance and crime. This journey includes also new epistemological frameworks on how to practically access and engage with online users, such as Instagram suggested friends to algorithmically sample participants. By virtually interacting with deviant, criminal and vulnerable participants on social media, field researchers are subjected to ethical reflections different from those that traditionally guide physical ethnographies in criminology. This contributes to considerations on new types of personal and professional risks, besides exciting and pleasurable experiences, underlying the deep involvement in crime situations on social media.