Emboding sexual violence in metaverse
New challenges for 3.0 research
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17561/rae.v25.10008Keywords:
Situated ethnography. Digital sexual violence. Virtual Reality (VR). Digital body. EmbodimentAbstract
Based on an autoethnographic research experience and from a feminist perspective, this article analyses the impact of sexual violence in Virtual Reality (VR) environments and its impact on fieldwork, reflecting on how digitized bodies also embody risk, affect and agency. It also proposes a typology of violence experienced in immersive environments and reflects on strategies of protection, tactical anonymity and collective care as political and methodological tools. This proposal is part of a commitment to a situated ethnography that recognizes vulnerability as a legitimate dimension of knowledge, questioning the androcentric narratives that have sustained ideals of neutrality, control and objectivity in scientific practice.
Downloads
References
Bailey, J. y Steeves, V. (2015). eGirls, eCitizens: Putting Technology, Theory and Policy into Dialogue with Girls’ and Young Women’s Voices. University of Ottawa Press.
Barad, K. (2003). Posthumanist performativity: Toward an understanding of how matter comes to matter. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 28(3), 801–831. https://doi.org/10.1086/345321
Barad, K. (2007). Meeting the universe halfway: Quantum physics and the entanglement of matter and meaning. Duke University Press.
Barantini, P. (2025). Adolescencia [Serie de televisión]. It’s All Made Up Productions; Netflix.
Bartkly, S. L. (1991). Femininity and Domination. Studies in the Penhomenology of Oppression. Routledge.
Berry, M. J., Chávez Argüelles, C., Cordis, S., Ihmoud, S., y Velásquez Estrada, E. (2017). Towards a fugitive anthro-pology: Gender, race, and violence in the field. Cultural Anthropology, 32(4), 537–565. https://doi.org/10.14506/ca32.4.05
Boellstorff, T. (2008). Coming of Age in Second Life: An Anthropologist Explores the Virtually Human. Princeton Uni-versity Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvc77h1s
Bordo, S. (1993). Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture, and the Body. University of California Press.
Bourdieu, P. (1997). Razones prácticas. Sobre la teoría de la acción. Barcelona: Anagrama.
Brownmiller, S. (1975). Against our will: men, women and rape. Penguin Books.
Butler, J. (1999). Gender Trouble. Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. Routledge.
Caliandro, A. (2021). Repurposing Digital Methods in a Post-API Research. Environment: Methodological and Ethical Implications. Italian Sociological Review, 11(4S), 225. https://doi.org/10.13136/isr.v11i4S.433
Celigueta, G. y Martínez, M. (2020). ¿Textiles mediáticos? Investigar sobre activismo indígena en Panamá, Guatema-la y el espacio Web 2.0. Revista Española de Antropología Americana, 50, 241-252 https://doi.org/10.5209/reaa.70367
Cirucci, A. M. (2017). Normative Interfaces: Affordances, Gender, and Race in Facebook. Social media and society, 3(2), 205630511771790. https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305117717905
Dworkin, A. y Mackinnon, C. A. (1989). Pornography and Civil Rights: A New Day for Women.
Fernández-Corbella, S. (2025). Metodologías inmersivas: una exploración epistemológica crítica de la entrevista cuali-tativa en entornos de Realidad Virtual [Trabajo Fin de Máster, Universidad Complutense de Madrid]. Docta Complutense.
Fernández-Corbella, S., y González Boluda, C. (2025). Reflexiones de investigación en entornos de realidad virtual. En Metodología de la investigación social digital: miradas, técnicas, desafíos. València: Tirant Lo Blanch (en pren-sa).
Geertz, C. y George, M. (1986). Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography. University of California Press.
Haraway, D. (1988). Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective. Feminist Studies, 14(3), 575–599. https://doi.org/10.2307/3178066
Heller, B. (2022). Privacy and the Metaverse. Prepared for the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. Submission to OHCH. June 4, 2022.
Hine, C. (2000). Etnografía Virtual. Barcelona: Editorial UOC. Colección Nuevas Tecnologías y Sociedad.
Huang, M. (2016). Vulnerable Observers: Notes on Fieldwork and Rape. Chronicle of Higher Education, October 12. Recuperado de https://www.chronicle.com/article/vulnerable-observers-notes-on-fieldwork-and-rape/
Johansson, L. (2015). Dangerous liaisons: risk, positionality and power in women’s anthropological fieldwork. Journal of the Anthropological Society of Oxford: Special issue on Sexual Harassment in the Field, 7(1) 55-63. Recupe-rado de /https://test-anthro.web.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/anthro/documents/media/jaso7_1_2015_55_63.pdf
Johnson, A. (2016). The Self at Stake: Thinking Fieldwork and Sexual Violence. Savage Minds, March 16. Recuperado de https://savageminds.org/2016/03/16/the-self-at-stake-thinking-fieldwork-and-sexual-violence/
Kelly, L. (1988). Surviving Sexual Violence. University of Minnesota Press.
Kilteni, K. y Groten, R. (2012). The Sense Of Embodiment in Virtual Reality. Barcelona: Facultat Psicología Universitat de Barcelona https://diposit.ub.edu/dspace/bitstream/2445/53294/1/634024.pdf
LaValle, S. M. (2023). Virtual reality. Cambridge University Press.
Lupton, D. (2017). The Quantified Self. Polity Press.
Munster, A. (2006). Materializing New Media: Embodiment in Information Aesthetics. Dartmouth College Press.
Pink, S., Horst, H., Postill, J., Hjorth, L., Lewis, T., y Tacchi, J. (2016). Etnografía digital. Principios y práctica. Ediciones Morata.
Rogers, R. (2013). Digital Methods. The MIT press. https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/8718.001.0001
Shulist, S., y Mulla, S. (2022). Toward an Anthropology of Sexual Harassment and Power: Myth, Ritual, and Fieldwork. American Anthropologist. Recuperado de https://www.americananthropologist.org/online-content/toward-an-anthropology-of-sexual-harassment-and-power
Steffen, M. (2017). Doing Fieldwork after Henrietta Schmerler: On Sexual Violence and Blame in Anthropology. Amer-ican Ethnologist. https://americanethnologist.org/features/reflections/doing-fieldwork-after-henrietta-schmerler
Tomasena, J. M. (2023). Cómo me hice BookTuber: (auto)etnografía digital, prosumo literario y sociabilidad en YouTube. Cuadernos.info, 54, 95-116. https://doi.org/10.7764/cdi.54.52927
Vella, D. (2015). The Ludic Subject and the Ludic Self: Analyzing the ‘I-in-the Gameworld’. [Tesis Doctoral, IT Universi-ty of Copenhagen].
Weber, M. (2002). Economía y sociedad: Esbozo de sociología comprensiva (Vol. 1–2, J. Rodríguez Arana, Trad.). Fondo de Cultura Económica.
Weltevrede, E., Helmond, A., y Gerlitz, C. (2014) Politics of Real-time: A Device Perspective on Social Media Plat-forms and Search Engines. Theory Culture Society, 31, 125. https://doi.org/10.1177/0263276414537318
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2025 Claudia González Boluda, Sandra Fernández Corbella

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Responsabilidad de los autores: son responsables por las ideas y datos empíricos de los manuscritos, por la fidelidad de la información, por la corrección de las citas, por los derechos para publicar cualquier material incluido en el texto y por la presentación del manuscrito en el formato requerido por la Revista de Antropología Experimental. Un manuscrito enviado a la Revista de Antropología Experimental no debe estar publicado ni haber sido presentado en la misma forma a otro medio de publicación. Así, mismo, los autores reconocen que conocen y están de acuerdos con estas PAUTAS EDITORIALES Y FORMALES. La dirección de la Revista de Antropología Experimental está permanentemente abierta para aclarar cualquiera de los contenidos aquí citados u de cualquier otra índole que surjan en el proceso de publicación de los manuscritos.