If 'headwork' is "the conceptual work that informs ethnographic fieldwork and its various representational practices", then this paper is a piece of headwork about what an ethnography in (or around, or of) an algorithm might entail. We begin by situating this question in ethnography’s long tradition of philosophical reflection on method and representation. This reflection has been deep and cutting, and some would argue that it has evacuated ethnography of its essence, identify and value.
