Digital Initiation Rites
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Digital Initiation Rites
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See more"An ethnography of Anonymous in Britain in the mid-2010s, the book maps a narrative of subjective epistemic change members call "waking up." This transformation is framed through the anthropology and sociology of cults and initiation rites, demonstrating the emergence of new digital forms of these phenomena"-- Provided by publisher.
Digital Initiation Rites is an ethnography of Anonymous in Britain between 2014 and 2017, in the context of government austerity. Drawing on testimonies of dozens of participants, for whom digital technologies enabled and articulated a political transformation from being "asleep" to being "awake," Vita Peacock narrates the process through which these technologies have become implicated in profound subjective changes.
The book joins a wider return of the comparative method in anthropology by placing these accounts in direct conversation with studies of traditional initiation ritesβritual sequences of symbolic death and rebirthβthat charge the initiand with knowledge about a society to produce a moral responsibility for it. Through this juxtaposition, Peacock conceptualises the historically novel form of digital initiation rites, in which digital communication and information technologies play a substantive role in these sequences.
Digital Initiation Rites presents another angle to contemporary debates around "conspiracy theorising" and shows how the consumption of digital media connects to the deep history of humankind.
Series: Expertise: Cultures and Technologies of Knowledge
View allBook Details
INFORMATION
ISBN: 9781501784446
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Format: Hardback
Date Published: 15 December 2025
Country: United States
Imprint: Cornell University Press
Illustration: 11 b&w halftones, 3 charts - 11 Halftones, black and white - 3 Charts
Audience: General / adult
DIMENSIONS
Width: 152.0mm
Height: 229.0mm
Weight: 907g
Pages: 234
About the Author
Vita Peacock is Principal Investigator of the ERC project Surveillance and Moral Community: Anthropologies of Monitoring in Germany and Britain, at King's College London. Her research focuses on hierarchy, surveillance, anonymity, and privacy. She is cofounder of the Anthropology of Surveillance Network (ANSUR).
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