Coming of Age in Second Life: An Anthropologist Explores the Virtually Human
Tom Boellstorff
"Tom Boellstorff conducted more than two years of fieldwork in Second Life, living among and observing its residents in the same way anthropologists traditionally have done to learn about cultures and social groups in the so-called real world. He applied the methods of anthropology to study many facets of this new frontier of human life, including issues of gender, race, sex, money, conflict and antisocial behavior, the construction of place and time, and the interplay of self and group."-- Original book jacket.
Award History
0 wins · 1 total
| Award | Year | Result | Category / Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| PROSE Award for Media and Cultural Studies | 2008 | Honorable mention | Official source |
Experimental book profileGenerated by GPT-5.4 nano · may contain inaccuracies
This is an unverified interpretation of the catalog description, offered as an opt-in discovery experiment—not as bibliographic fact.
01 Central figures
None extracted with sufficient confidence.
02 Central places
- Second Life85%
03 Suggested argument
No argument inferred with sufficient confidence.
This suggestion did not meet the normal display threshold and is more likely to be wrong.
Boellstorff argues that applying anthropological fieldwork methods to Second Life can reveal how a virtually human social world constructs gender, identity, place, time, and economic life much like real-world cultures.
Model confidence 52%
04 Reading orientation
70 / 100 academicAcademic
An estimate of intended readership and scholarly apparatus—not quality or importance.
Confidence percentages are the model's own estimates. Profile confidence: 83%.