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Kits for Digital Methods: Doing Sociotechnical Research is a guide to innovating research methods for a world where digital technologies permeate everyday life and research. Drawing on the expertise of leading sociotechnical researchers, it reimagines the "kit" not as a fixed set of tools or solutions, but as a flexible, transparent, and collaborative framework for methodological experimentation. These kits are sandboxes for experimenting, playing, and reflecting on the ethics and possibilities of digital research.
Organized into three sections-Digital Engagement, Digital Elicitation, and Digital Data-contributors share their processes for designing and adapting methods to complex digital contexts. Each chapter contains background, components, practical guidance, and lessons learned for exploring the frictions, failures, and surprises that shape sociotechnical research.
Kits range from remote fieldwork and social media ethnography to participatory analysis, collaborative image description, and AI-assisted elicitation-filled with concrete techniques for engaging digital environments, eliciting novel forms of data, and working with digital materials. The book encourages adaptation, remixing, and the creation of new kits, fostering a culture of openness and methodological innovation. Written for researchers, educators, and students across the social sciences and humanities, it demystifies advanced digital methods while encouraging critical thinking, ethical reflexivity, and creative problem-solving.
List of contents
1. The
Kits for Digital Methods Kits: Introduction
Part I: Digital Engagement Kits 2. The Remote Fieldwork Kit 3. The UX Researcher's Identity Balancing Kit 4. The Programming as Participant-Observation Kit 5. The Friending as Participant-Observation Kit 6. The AI Impact Engagement Kit
Part II: Digital Elicitation Kits 7. The AI Feedback Kit 8. The Making Together Kit 9. The Photostories Kit 10. The Collaborative Comics and Image Description Kit 11. The Participatory Analysis Kit
Part III: Digital Data Kits 12. The Purposeful Sample Kit 13. The Metadata and Mapping Kit 14. The Image Collage Kit 15. The Encountering Qualitative Data with STEM Students Kit 16. The Academic Website Building and Optimization Kit17. The
Kits for Digital Methods Kit: Conclusion
About the author
Angela K. VandenBroek is an Assistant Professor in the Dept. of Anthropology, at Texas State University, USA.
Nicole Taylor is an Associate Professor in the Dept. of Anthropology at Texas State University, USA.
