Science, technology and society revisited: what is happening to anthropology and ethnography?

Anthropologists and ethnographers have been important contributors to the field of computer-supported cooperative work, with many insights and attendant innovations derived from this partnership. More recently, the discipline of anthropology has taken a critical turn, one of the consequences being doubts regarding anthropology's relationship with science (as in "...the most humanistic of the sciences and the most scientific of the humanities.") A shift in stance from one that sought the classical position of the empirical scientist and/or the humanistic interpreter ("verstehen") to another that is more deliberately and self-consciously critical has potential implications for the position of technology in ethnographic field studies, both as a human tool and as a subject of inquiry. The evolution of the social sciences increasingly will be influenced by the availability of and access to massive amounts of digital information, and new types of technology for its collection and analysis. How anthropology and ethnography engage with this new world of digital information remains an open question. Regardless, they will face competitive challenges in the marketplace. The shifting currents that surround changes we are witnessing in anthropology and ethnography will be placed in a historical and social context, and implications for their future prospects will be explored.