At one level, Grano is not that different from most other similar- sized towns in the province of Salento. This becomes evident when we con-trast the descriptions in this book with other sites examined in the ‘Why We Post’ project or when looking at the local answers to general ques-tions about the impact of social media on the world in which we live. On such occasions all the smaller and larger towns in Salento, or the larger region of Puglia, unite in a solemn solidarity and seem incredibly similar in contrast to other parts of southern Italy, such as the region of Naples which is on the western coast of the peninsula at a distance of five hours drive and eight hours by bus or train.44
I lived in Grano for 15 months during 2013 and 2014. My wife Gabriela, who is also an anthropologist, and our two children joined me for almost a year. My son went to a local nursery and had to learn Italian. We left our daughter with different babysitters and friends and, later on, in a nursery as well, while my wife worked in the local library or from home. This opened many doors that otherwise
would have been simply inaccessible. Grano is a gendered society and being married is the central position from which you are allowed to cross all sorts of social borders. As a single man I could have never reached the levels of intimacy and friendship that nurseries and play-grounds have to offer. People simply trusted me more perhaps because I complied with what they would expect from somebody like me: com-mitment to family and work.
I had the privilege of getting to know hundreds of people and shar-ing innumerable personal stories and experiences. I ended up knowshar-ing well over 80 people living in 30 households, including local officials and public figures. I conducted formal in- depth interviews with 91 people, most of them recorded, and had several hundred formal and informal conversations on different aspects of the project. When you live in the field for this amount of time, any minor job turns out to be an opportu-nity to learn something about the society around you.
I also conducted three types of questionnaire: an exploratory one, which included a detailed household survey and individual data on the use of electronic media and was conducted with 106 respondents at the beginning of the research; a second questionnaire, which focused on the use of Facebook and was conducted with 109 respondents; a third questionnaire with 539 school students, who were mostly in the last two years of secondary schools in Grano, which focused on teenagers’ use of social media.45 I also recorded several hours of film documenting peo-ple, customs and places and co- edited ten short clips that were used in teaching at UCL and in producing the free e- learning course called The Anthropology of Social Media.46
However, what was probably the most fascinating element of this research was the online component. I opened a personal Facebook pro-file dedicated to my research. It was a public propro-file and I set the pri-vacy settings so that friends and followers could not see each other. In the ‘About me’ section I detailed my role as a researcher and the scope of the project. The profile name was Razvan Nicolescu Ucl, the profile photo showed me somewhat younger and the background photo showed me together with my wife. In total I friended 210 people on this profile, most of whom participated in the research. I found it particularly diffi-cult because this research profile soon became a personal one, for exam-ple many Facebook friends became really close friends. I was careful to explain the nature of my research in every context, even though many people were not too concerned with their Facebook presence because this was seen as a public platform. I decided to follow 20 Instagram pro-files and 12 Twitter accounts, because the usage of these two services in
Grano was scarce. As I was writing this book all these profiles were still active and constantly growing in usage.
I gathered extensive ethnographic materials, which included the records of local, regional and national censuses; read volumes about social history and the local economy; and became acquainted with the current political scene. Actually it was a challenge keeping pace with the wealth of available material: local press, brochures, art catalogues, professional and amateur videos, and official local data. In good Italian tradition, many people in the region were involved in different kinds of editorial activities and several published volumes on various aspects of Grano and its surroundings: a teacher and publicist wrote a few books on the history of the place and its institutions; a publisher edited a cou-ple of anthologies on the local folk traditions; one successful entrepre-neur wrote four books and produced several short documentaries on the social history of Grano; and a few cultural associations organised events, exhibitions and talks several times a year. The local library kept the full collection of all major journals that were published locally throughout the last century.47 Italy is also thorough about compiling statistics and making these available online as the state encourages complete transparency in governance (for example, in Grano the coun-cil meetings were public and streamed live on the internet).
To me Grano no longer looks like an average town in Italy with around 20,000 inhabitants, which was the required criteria of the pro-ject. The process of ethnographic field work and anthropological writing has distinguished it for me from other towns. The next chapter will give a general sense of how people in Grano use social media. Then Chapter 3 will focus in and take a closer look at what people post on Facebook and formulate a few preliminary suggestions about how these postings reflect the way people see their society and social relations. We will take this visibility down one level in Chapter 4, where we discuss how peo-ple use social media in relation to their more intimate and private rela-tionships. Chapters 5 and 6 will widen the lens and explain how both public displays and private relations are two sides of the very specific sociality of Grano. Chapter 5 discusses the critical importance of public visibility and the social requirement to craft it. Chapter 6 describes how people use social media in relation to the fundamental issues of work and education. Finally the conclusion of this book will put all these into an even larger perspective, and explain why understanding the use of social media in an average corner of the world such as Grano is essential to appreciating the world we live in.