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- Convenors:
-
Gertraud Koch
(Universität Hamburg)
Samantha Lutz (University of Hamburg)
Isto Huvila (Uppsala University)
Maria Economou (University of Glasgow)
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- Formats:
- Panel
- Stream:
- Digital Lives
- Sessions:
- Tuesday 22 June, -
Time zone: Europe/Helsinki
Short Abstract:
Digital media ecologies promise to open-up established knowledge orders by providing new modes of participation and publicness. However, participatory memory making did not emerge by itself for people in vulnerable social situations. The panel explores modalities for opening-up memory making.
Long Abstract:
Digital media ecologies open-up publics for articulations of people and groups beyond the established institutions. They promise to break with traditional knowledge hierarchies by providing new modes of participation and publicness. However, participatory memory making for people and groups in vulnerable social situations did not emerge by itself through the re-mediation of memories, which emerges from digitalization with its particular capacity for representing, sharing and sustaining knowledge (including emotional, practical and tacit knowing). Being aware of the fact that culture may cultivate integrative or disruptive forces, establishing inclusive politics of heritage for envisioning possible futures has become a key issue in memory making. Building on the rich knowledge on participation in memory making, we thus want to move on and explore the wide array of modalities, in which mediated memories contribute to opening-up established knowledge orders in public memory.
This panel invites contributions on how memory modalities open-up established knowledge orders and foster social inclusive, future envisioning memory making. We seek to discover and inquire which organisational settings, discourses, business models and finances, cultural economies, legal frameworks or potential other modalities facilitate accessibility, agency and motivation of people and groups to partake in public memory making. Being part of the public memory is important for envisioning positive possible futures acknowledging people's and groups' history, identity, belonging, and membership, in questions of eligibility for public support or redemption, for partaking in economic outcomes or questions of ownership of cultural heritage resources.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Tuesday 22 June, 2021, -Paper short abstract:
The Fête des Vignerons (Winegrowers' Festival) is held in Switzerland every 20-25 years. Drawing on ethnographic work and digital methods, this paper looks at how, during the 2019 edition, YouTube became the place for extending the festivities and fostering new, participatory memorial practices.
Paper long abstract:
Enshrined in UNESCO's intangible cultural heritage list, the Fête des Vignerons (Winegrowers' Festival) is a Swiss traditional festival celebrated since 1797 in Vevey, on the shores of the Geneva Lake. Held only five times per century, each edition of the living spectacle on winegrowing takes place in a world that has profoundly changed. Mobilizing thousands of people and various public and private institutions, its 12th edition deployed for the first time not only in Vevey but also beyond its physical geographies through an ecosystem of digital social media which enabled new modes of engagement. YouTube, among other digital spaces, appeared as a key place, not only for the extension of the realm of the celebration, but also for its participatory memorialization. Drawing on a three-year onsite and online ethnography, this paper investigates the construction of YouTube as a place for opening up participation in memory making, and ultimately for complementing other mechanisms of public memory building. The results of the inquiry about the investment on YouTube before, during and after Fête allow contrasting expectations, affordances and practices of diverse actors, including managers, partners, and YouTubers. By situating the platform as a component in an organizational and cultural assemblage, its configuration as a site for collaborative memory building appears under a nuanced light, neither enthusiastic, nor hopeless. If this digital archive of the Fête's heritage escapes to some extent the control of professional curators, it remains unfailingly ruled by the opaque, commercial principles of the platform's algorithmic system.
Paper short abstract:
With the advent of the Internet, the mechanisms of communication and socialization, the ways of self-perception and self-presentation have changed. Many new phenomena have emerged, one of which is a digital commemoration.
Paper long abstract:
With the advent of the Internet, the mechanisms of communication and socialization, the ways of self-perception and self-presentation have changed. Many new phenomena have emerged, one of which is a digital commemoration.
Digital commemorative practices are forms and methods of constructing, preserving and transferring historical memory, as well as activities aimed at representing past events associated with the use of information technologies.
The paper is devoted to digital commemorations initiated by representatives of the New African Diaspora. This term and the concept of the division of African Diaspora into the Old one and the New, were coined by a historian, Toyin Falola. According to Falola, the “New African Diaspora” has been formed by voluntary African immigrants in the late 20th century.
Compared to the Old African diaspora, created by the transatlantic slave trade, the New one looks more heterogeneous and includes people of various social and professional statuses: political refugees, illegal migrants, students, highly sought-after professionals, representatives of the creative class. The members of the New African Diaspora tend to historical reflection. They are often striving to represent their experience and identity in all available forms.
The paper shows and analyzes the various types of representing the historical memory in the narratives presented by members of the New African Diaspora. The author focuses on different forms of interactive digital narrative and digital commemorations (on examples such as “The Nana Project” and “Biafran War Memories”).
Paper short abstract:
This presentation intends to explore most active virtual indigenous groups, their similarities or differences particularly on the messages that they are sharing. It will look to analyse how the social media encourages group’s members to sustain and promote their cultural practices.
Paper long abstract:
Culture is how people express themselves, relate to the world around them and to belong. It plays a huge role in people’s lives and everyday practices. Culture tends to unite people and instill a sense of belonging. Virtual space allows people to connect with each other and unite together based on cultural beliefs.
There are 19 indigenous small-numbered peoples’ groups in the Russia’s Arctic and most of those groups have an active social media presence. I intend to analyse how and for what purpose the indigenous groups of the Russian High North use the social media domains. I intend to explore interactions that are taking place within virtual indigenous groups and analyse how those groups encourage a sense of virtual belonging to an indigenous cultural and amongst their members.
I will present the data gathered from a number of most active VKontakte (VK) platforms associated to Russia’s Arctic indigenous groups. My presentation will examine the intent and aspiration behind the messages or posts that those groups are disseminating, as well as compare the member engagement or participation in any given discourse. I intend to explore whether the virtual or digital groups differ from each other or they are inherently similar due to their vulnerabilities. Also, I will look to analyse how the social media encourages group’s members to share and sustain their cultural practices and therefore promote their cultural value to much larger audience.
Paper short abstract:
Sustainability has become a key concept in the cultural sector that is currently challenged by the dynamics of digital transformation. What sustainability means in the field of culture and to what extent digital media as new memory modalities reconfigure the concept itself is examined in the paper.
Paper long abstract:
In view of growing divisive tendencies such as radicalization and the gap between rich and poor that are currently amplified by the Covid-19 pandemic, the question of sustainability becomes increasingly pressing as a societal challenge of how we should live together in the future (Collier/Lakoff 2005). While sustainability is not a new term, it has only recently found its way into cultural policy, particularly through the efforts of UNESCO (2003) and its governance approach of sustainable development, and thus becoming a criterion for memory work in the cultural sector. However, it remains unclear what can be understood by sustainability. As it is left to the cultural institutions to fill this gap in practice, it needs clarification of what is considered ‘(un-)sustainable’ in this field.
In addition, digital media as new memory modalities put current safeguarding practices and power relations at stake, promising to open up knowledge production in the “memory complex” (Macdonald 2013). New forms of cultural production emerge in digital media ecologies such as practices of ‘creative reuse’ for remixing ‘open cultural data’ in design challenges and hackathons.
My paper discusses the current state of research on sustainability and presents first findings from a discourse ethnography on digitisation projects in GLAMs and creative reuse practices. Key questions are: which ideas of sustainability are negotiated of how cultural heritage should be safeguarded in digital media ecologies? How is the media change associated with sustainability? To what extent do digital media as new memory modalities reconfigure the question of sustainability?