Margaret Mead and Rhoda Métraux in their work The Study of Culture at a Distance, 1953 used literature, film, informant interviews, focus groups, and projective techniques to gather information on cultures that were not accessible during the War period. This work is basically a manual wherein the Introduction to this work they had stated that the method employed was to be used under circumstances where the community is not accessible for fieldwork. At other times they emphasized that the anthropologist in order to produce “best research conditions for their theoretical problems must continue to go to living primitive societies”. In the twenty-first century, the digital world that encompasses visuals, films, social media, virtual reality, and artificial intelligence is part of the ethnographic world for an anthropologist. Anthropologists have designed and developed theories and methodologies to study these spaces. The same is being used to teach anthropology also. It is no longer to be used only during restrictions.
In the present paper, I pen an auto-ethnographic account of teaching anthropology and the help extended to learners as to how they can conduct fieldwork in the digital space during the COVID-19 pandemic that ensued a lockdown creating a challenge for anthropological fieldwork. The emphasis of the paper would be on the use of digital platforms- Facebook and telephonic Radio Counseling sessions for teaching.
