Coming of Age in Second Life: An Anthropologist Explores the Virtually Human

In many ways, Boellstorff set the ground for thinking about social relations in virtual worlds in his 2-year fieldwork in Second Life. Of particular interest to this project are the chapters on space and personhood. Defining place and defining being in place. This book is invaluable in the myriad participant voices it records, giving direct insight into social and cultural practices in virtual worlds and mapping tendencies and connections between virtual and actual worlds. "Just as it is possible to take virtual worlds in their own terms, so it is possible to take virtual personhoods in their own terms. In both cases, the virtual is shaped in powerful ways by referential and practical relationships to the actual world, but these relationships help constitute the virtual itself" (p122.)