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Reanimating cultural heritage: digital repatriation, knowledge networks and civil society strengthening in post-conflict Sierra Leone

复兴文化遗产：冲突后塞拉利昂的数字归还、知识网络和民间社会加强

基本信息

批准号：
AH/G013691/1
负责人：
Paul Basu
金额：
$ 61.68万
依托单位：
University College London
依托单位国家：
英国
项目类别：
Research Grant
财政年份：
2009
资助国家：
英国
起止时间：
2009 至无数据
项目状态：
已结题

来源：
https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=AH%2FG013691%2F1
关键词：
Reanimating cultural heritage digital repatriation

项目摘要

The ability of material culture to open horizons of knowledge and imagination beyond that transmitted through text is fundamental to contemporary museum practice. Interactive digital technologies, especially, provide new opportunities for reanimating ethnographic collections in exhibition and outreach contexts, in the field of museum and source community relations, and as a means of generating and connecting diverse knowledge networks around objects. Such technological developments necessitate a radical rethinking of what ethnographic museums and their collections are and do in the digital age.This multidisciplinary project is concerned with innovating 'digital curatorship' in relation to Sierra Leonean collections dispersed in the global museumscape. Extending research in anthropology, museum studies, informatics and beyond, the project considers how objects that have become isolated from the oral and performative contexts that originally animated them can be reanimated in digital space alongside associated images, video clips, sounds, texts and other media, and thereby given new life.In partnership with the British Museum, Brighton Museum & Art Gallery, Glasgow Museums and collaborating institutions in Sierra Leone, a digital heritage resource is created that utilizes social networking technologies to reconnect objects with disparate communities and foster reciprocal knowledge exchange across boundaries. Whereas the practice of 'digital repatriation' has become increasingly popular with museums, the reception of such initiatives by source communities has not been critically assessed. Thus, a crucial part of the project is to employ innovative participatory methods to pilot and evaluate the digital resource in Sierra Leone.As well as its impact in Sierra Leone, the research will inform museum policy-making more widely, exemplify how museums can play a role in strengthening international relations, and provide a platform for future research and capacity building initiatives. The process and findings of the research will be publicized widely through a series of innovative dissemination methods, including a project blog and multi-sited exhibition.Research ContextWhereas Sierra Leone was once renowned for the vibrancy of its cultural traditions, including the varied music, dance, masquerade and storytelling practices of its several ethno-linguistic groups, the dominant image of Sierra Leone today is of a war-torn society held hostage by child soldiers and corrupt politicians. Despite six years of peace, infrastructure is only now beginning to return, and Sierra Leone remains one of the least developed countries in the world, with a literacy rate of just 35%. The disruptions of a decade of conflict have had a huge impact on cultural as well as economic activities. Alongside infrastructure- and governance-related development programmes, there is therefore an urgent need to reanimate Sierra Leone's cultural life and heritage. The problem is that those institutions, such as Sierra Leone's National Museum, which might lead such cultural renaissance, have themselves suffered from chronic neglect and have few resources and little expertise. At the same time there is a wealth of Sierra Leonean material culture and associated scholarship dispersed in the world's museums. This project is concerned with exploring how these 'diasporas' of objects and knowledges can again become meaningful resources for Sierra Leoneans who currently have no access to them.The project not only investigates how the digitization of museum collections provides an opportunity for the 'virtual repatriation' of objects, but also how 'remediating' collections in digital space can reanimate them and generate more diverse knowledge networks around them - bringing together academic scholarship, for example, with indigenous knowledges in a way thatpotentially enriches both, while disrupting conventional knowledge-power asymmetries.

物质文化在文本传播之外打开知识和想象视野的能力是当代博物馆实践的基础。特别是，交互式数字技术为在展览和推广背景下，在博物馆和来源社区关系领域，以及作为围绕物体产生和连接各种知识网络的手段，重新激活民族志收藏提供了新的机会。这样的技术发展需要对民族志博物馆及其藏品在数字时代的意义和作用进行彻底的反思。这个多学科项目关注的是与分散在全球博物馆景观中的塞拉利昂藏品有关的创新“数字策展”。该项目扩展了人类学、博物馆研究、信息学等领域的研究，考虑了那些与最初激活它们的口头和表演环境分离的物体如何在数字空间中与相关的图像、视频剪辑、声音、文本和其他媒体一起重新激活，从而赋予它们新的生命。与大英博物馆、布莱顿博物馆和艺术画廊、格拉斯哥博物馆以及塞拉利昂的合作机构合作，创建了一个数字遗产资源，利用社交网络技术将不同社区的物品重新连接起来，促进跨边界的互惠知识交流。尽管“数字归还”的做法在博物馆中越来越受欢迎，但来源国对此类举措的接受程度尚未得到严格评估。因此，该项目的一个关键部分是采用创新的参与式方法对塞拉利昂的数字资源进行试点和评估。除了对塞拉利昂的影响外，该研究还将更广泛地为博物馆的决策提供信息，举例说明博物馆如何在加强国际关系方面发挥作用，并为未来的研究和能力建设倡议提供平台。通过一系列创新的传播方式，包括项目博客和多站点展览，广泛宣传研究的过程和结果。虽然塞拉利昂曾经以其充满活力的文化传统而闻名，包括各种音乐、舞蹈、化妆舞会和几个民族语言群体的讲故事活动，但今天塞拉利昂的主要形象是一个被儿童兵和腐败政客绑架的饱受战争蹂躏的社会。尽管经历了六年的和平，但基础设施直到现在才开始恢复，塞拉利昂仍然是世界上最不发达的国家之一，识字率只有35%。十年冲突的破坏对文化和经济活动产生了巨大影响。因此，除了与基础设施和治理相关的发展项目外，迫切需要重振塞拉利昂的文化生活和遗产。问题是，这些机构，比如塞拉利昂国家博物馆，可能会引领这样的文化复兴，但它们自己长期受到忽视，资源和专业知识都很少。与此同时，塞拉利昂的物质文化和相关的学术知识也丰富地分布在世界各地的博物馆中。该项目旨在探索这些散居的物品和知识如何再次成为目前无法获得的塞拉利昂人的有意义的资源。该项目不仅研究了博物馆藏品的数字化如何为物品的“虚拟归还”提供机会，还研究了数字空间中的“修复”藏品如何使它们重新焕发活力，并在它们周围产生更多样化的知识网络——例如，将学术研究与本土知识结合在一起，以一种潜在地丰富两者的方式，同时打破传统的知识-权力不对称。