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[HOW DID YOU DO YOUR FIELDWORK?]

So really, this way of doing fieldwork

has been quite a unique way of doing fieldwork.

In traditional anthropology

which is the subject and background I'm from,

people would normally spend 15 months

in a place living closely with people

and just 'hanging out'.

Spending time with people, writing every day.

So, I've done that.

I've done the 'anthropological thing'.

I've lived in this town for 15 months, between 2013 and 2014.

I've lived in a village on the side of the town

and I've spent pretty much everyday here.

I spend my days hanging out with people,

eating with people,

spending time with them, chatting with them.

Finding out not just about social media, but about all kinds of aspects of their lives.

And these people, normally in anthropology or in science

we call them our participants or informants

but actually, most of all, they're my friends.

That's one of the really important things in our methodology.

We hope that by getting close to people we understand more about their lives

and they're willing to let us understand more about their lives.

But also with this project we've tried to blend that anthropological research,

what we call the ethnographic research,

that close observation of everyday life,

with lots of other research methods.

So as well, in this town we've also done 120, almost, detailed questionnaires.

and a large number of these long recorded interviews.

[ARE YOU ON YOUR OWN OUT THERE?]

Actually while normal anthropology was always a very solitary pursuit

and you would go into a tribe in the jungle

and be there on your own for a year and a half

what's been really great about my research here

is that it's been really collaborative

and it's involved the help and assistance of lots of people.

So in my field site I was very fortunate, at the start,

to have the help of 2 research assistants from Beijing

who spent the first three months with me

I've also used research assistants from the local villages in the town.

and I work with them and they help introduce me to people

or sometimes help to explain things to me.

[DO PEOPLE DO THE SAME SOMEWHERE ELSE?]

Also, one of the most important parts of this fieldwork

has been that it's a collaborative and a comparative thing.

So while I've been doing my fieldwork here in this fieldsite

my colleagues from the project

have been doing the same fieldwork in

Brazil, India, Trinidad, the UK, Chile, in Turkey

and all around the world.

This has being great because we've been keeping

in contact by email regularly

and also doing a monthly video call

where we talk about and compare our results.

So this has been a really different project

and a far more collaborative one.

So it's been great because

when questions have come out in the field.

We've been comparing what people have been saying in China

to what they've been saying in Chile.

That has been really useful for me

and it's completely changed the way that I do anthropology

and it's completely changed the way I think about how

my results fit amongst everybody else's.

[SUBTITLES: Your name]