Eiko Ikegami, Chair and Professor of Sociology at the New School for Social Research, received a major grant from National Science Foundation to do a study on avatars, virtual civility, and trust on Second Life. The study will explore how virtual sites manage to create virtual civility and trust among geographically-distanced “strangers” and will examine the cultural mechanisms that prompt and enable avatars to develop trustworthy virtual communities.

According to Dr. Ikegami, information technologies have proven powerful in potentiating new expressions of community. In emerging 3D online virtual worlds, building successful social groups involves a delicate process of developing “trust and civility.” Collaborating with an international team of researchers, Dr. Ikegami will examine this and other processes, as well as virtual cultures, paying particular attention to those in which spirituality, broadly conceived, plays an important role in communication.

On Second Life, Dr. Ikegami is known as Kiremimi Tigerpaw and can be regularly found hanging out in Kira Café , sponsored by the Kira Institute. Her most recent book, Bonds of Civility, received five book awards, including the Best Book Award in Cultural Sociology.