Page 3 of 9

RESEARCHING EUROPE

In 1999, mobile phones were rapidly proliferating across Europe, and text messaging was becoming a preferred form of communication. In some countries, including several we visited, the number of mobile phones was eclipsing the number of landlines. Alternative Internet access devices were beginning to spring up and make money including Web-kiosks, interactive TV platforms, and other models of non-domestic Internet use. It was increasingly clear, from a US vantage point, that Europe was doing something different; the intersections of emerging technologies and social practices were occurring at different points, with different consequences, and with different cultural elaborations.

We theorized that these patterns of use might reflect underlying cultural practices. Getting at what some of these practices might be, and what kind of impact they could have on future technology development and consumption seemed to be an appropriate place to test our ethnographic research methods. Therefore, in the summer and fall of 1999, we spent a total of 16 weeks in Italy, the UK, Germany, France, and Spain visiting 45 households, interviewing the occupants, and taking inventory of the contents. We spent time in 15 urban centers trying to get a sense of what life was like.

For fieldwork in Germany, France, and Spain we worked with external consultants. The external consultants, who served as cultural and linguistic translators, were trained ethnographers, and we relied heavily on them to guide us in selecting field sites and in recruiting participants.

For my colleagues, the European research constituted return trips to childhood family homes, recalled halcyon high-school trips and college years spent abroad or constituted a return to previous sites of research or places of vacation. For me, this fieldwork represented my first encounters with Europe. I stood in an Italian kitchen drinking coffee and listened to a day's instructions unfold. The Europe I would find over the next five months was a patchwork of currency, dial tones, electrical outlets, newspapers, television news, bathrooms, bedding, breakfasts, the right water for the right meal, food, sounds, and color. It was the famous and mundane sights of elsewhere seen from profoundly local vantage points.

Our fieldwork in May of 1999 began with a short pilot study in northern Italy. (Fieldwork in Italy allowed us to rehearse and refine our methods and approaches.) We were concerned that research methods developed for the US might not work in Italy, and indeed, many didn't. We commenced research in a small town in northern Italy, located about 45 kilometers north of Venice. We spent ten days there, visiting a total of nine households in the surrounding area and three small businesses. We also spent time in Treviso, a nearby larger commercial center, and in Venice. This would become the format for the rest of the project. In each country, we spent time in three distinct sites: a small town, a larger population center, and a major urban metropolis.

After our initial visit to Northern Italy, we returned to the US and began planning for further visits to Western Europe later in the summer. In July, we spent a week in Scotland, in and around Glasgow, and then two weeks in and around London. We inventoried ten households, including a close knit, working class, social network in Glasgow and a household of diasporic Indians in London. We also spent time in a number of different retail and commercial spaces.

Immediately after the UK fieldwork was completed, we flew to Germany and spent two weeks in southern Germany, and then several days in Berlin. We were able to trace out an entire social network, which included an extended family, high school and university friends, and social acquaintances. We visited ten households, which included a group house in Stuttgart, several households with small children, a single-parent household, and the household of a retired couple. We also interviewed three small-business owners.

We returned to Europe again in early September, spending time in Brittany, Nantes, and Paris. In Brittany, we spent the bulk of our time in a small coastal village, which is a major seaside destination in the summer. We spent time in five households and in one small business. We also visited a number of local markets, retail and commercial districts, and a variety of public spaces. We spent time in Nantes, interviewing two households and two small businesses, as well as spending more time in public markets and Internet cafes. We visited three households in Paris and spent time in a range of public places and public transportation sites.

In late October, we returned again to Europe, this time to Spain, where we spent the bulk of our time in the Basque region of northern Spain. We visited only three households in the Basque region, but spent time with people outside of their homes talking about daily life; we also visited several places of work. After the Basque region, we visited with families in and around Barcelona, interviewing three more households and spending time with people outside their homes.

In total, we interviewed more than 100 individuals and took more than 8,000 digital photos (and limited video), as well as collected many boxes of cultural ephemera and material artifacts (including newspapers, advertising, catalogs, free postcards). But in truth, the fieldwork was the easy part; making sense of all this material and conveying those insights back to product groups and other audiences within Intel was a much bigger challenge.