This paper investigates the impact of digital technologies on human interaction, specifically in the context of the Helping Hands community within the virtual reality (VR) platform VRChat. Helping Hands supports Deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals and promotes learning about Deaf culture. The study employs digital ethnography to explore how the affordances of VR co-produce relationality and identity in this community.
We analyze the mutual shaping of the technologically mediated environment of VR and its inhabitants. We examine how habitual communication modalities, such as sign languages, are transformed and intertwine with other technologically-enabled resources to create new symbols, meanings, and identities. We also discuss the development of specific signing modalities compatible with popular VR controllers as a response to VR equipment limitations, reflecting on the co-production of relationships through technology.
Our methodology combines multimodal videography with participant observation in VR and interviews with community members to gain insight into the organization of community activities, such as ASL-teaching, and how they contribute to (re)creating the structure of Helping Hands. By transitioning between different communication modalities and virtual environments, members actively engage in developing a more inclusive infrastructure, fostering a strong sense of identity.
Our findings critically examine the concept of affordances and question the possibility of interdisciplinary dialogue for studying environments where culture, technology, and social behavior intersect. We invite broader discussions on embodiment, temporality, and language use in unorthodox interactional contexts. By focusing on a specific VR community, we contribute to the conversation around manners of relating through technologies and the visions and ideologies of connectivity that inform relationality in the digital age.
