For Whom the Ontology Turns: Theorizing the Digital Real

A diverse body of work known as the “ontological turn” has made important contributions to anthropological theory. In this article, I build on this work to address one of the most important theoretical and political issues haunting contemporary theories of technology: the opposition of the “digital” to the “real.” This fundamentally misrepresents the relationship between the online and offline, in both directions. First, it flies in the face of the myriad ways that the online is real. Second (and just as problematically), it implies that everything physical is real. Work in the ontological turn can help correct this misrepresentation regarding the reality of the digital. However, this potential contribution is limited by conceptions of difference the ontological turn shares with the interpretive frameworks it turns against. Drawing on ontological-turn scholarship, my own research, and a range of thinkers, including Tarde, I work to show how an ontological approach that problematizes both similitude and difference provides valuable resources for understanding digital culture as well as for culture theory more generally.