Executive summary/Abstract: Thick data is embodied data. Embodiment has always been a paradigm for anthropology – as the existential grounds for culture, without bodies, there is no culture. Moreover, ethnography has been primarily an embodied method. ·AI has many bodies which it can coopt to operate through– traffic cameras, computers screens, websites, portable devices, cars and so many more, through the IoT. It is how Big data gets big fast. ·In contrast, an ethnographer has only a single body through which to conduct her inquiries – and is thus at a growing disadvantage compared to AI. How might she gather “thick data” and conduct embodied inquiries at the speed and scale of big data? ·Teleoperated robots –developed for applications in the remote provision of medical care, education, and rescue response, among others – offer a compelling ways of scaling embodiment at a speed and scale that allows the human to stay in the loop. They enable the transportation of a human ́s senses, presence, and abilities to act on and manipulate the physical environment (give a hug, pick up an object) to a remote location in real time. ·I briefly explain teleoperated robots to sketch out the potential future uses, implications, limitations for a teleoperated ethnography in a world in which lockdowns due to pathogens, border closures due to conflict, and environmental disaster will require of anthropologists to not only innovate their theories and methods, but also their bodies.
