The metaverse concept arose in the world of video games, where players created an avatar for themselves and their environment, and with this, interact with other users within a virtual world. In a few years the metaverse has transcended to other areas such as education, business, finance; which would it makes possible for it to be studied as a parallel reality, in which relationships of different orders are carried out, between human and non-human actors (artificial intelligence, tokens, NFTs, cryptocurrencies, blockchain and other technologies).
At present there are educational organizations that implement the metaverse as a form of teaching. At the same time, there are the malls where each brand pays for a store and sells its products, understanding it as the future territory for the development of global businesses. This is also being implemented in financial companies, which rely on decentralized technologies, and offer investments in digital assets, contributing to a "well-being" ecosystem.
The central objective of this panel is to reflect on the most appropriate categories to understand the metaverse as a parallel reality. In daily use, the words of space, territory, place and site appear, alluding to a geographical theme. But at the same time, other actors prefer to locate it as a problem of new social relations, economic changes, and even innovations in the field of politics; finally, they are also manifestations of cultural change.
For experts in global anthropology and ethnology, this panel will be of vital importance to delve into questions such as: will technology unify the cultural particularities that characterize the human species? What meanings, representations, and presences do social relations and ways of life acquire, when moving to these other virtual and digital worlds? What would be the foreseeable impacts for the future of humanity?
