Strokes of serendipity: community co-curation and engagement with digital heritage

This article explores the potential that community–led digital engagement with heritage holds for stimulating active citizenship through taking responsibility for shared cultural heritage and for fostering long-lasting relationships between local community heritage groups and national museums. Throu...

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Main Authors: Mutibwa, Daniel H., Hess, Alison, Jackson, Tom
Format: Article
Published: SAGE Publications 2020
Subjects:
Online Access:https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/48871/
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author Mutibwa, Daniel H.
Hess, Alison
Jackson, Tom
author_facet Mutibwa, Daniel H.
Hess, Alison
Jackson, Tom
author_sort Mutibwa, Daniel H.
building Nottingham Research Data Repository
collection Online Access
description This article explores the potential that community–led digital engagement with heritage holds for stimulating active citizenship through taking responsibility for shared cultural heritage and for fostering long-lasting relationships between local community heritage groups and national museums. Through the lens of a pilot project titled Science Museum: Community-in- Residence, we discovered that — despite working with community groups that were already loyal to and enjoyed existing working ties with the Science Museum in London, U.K — this undertaking proved challenging owing to a range of structural and logistical issues even before the application of digital devices and tools had been considered. These challenges notwithstanding, the pilot found that the creation of time and space for face-to-face dialogue and interactions between the Science Museum and the participating community heritage groups helped to establish the parameters within which digital co-curation can effectively occur. This, in turn, informed the development of a digital prototype with huge potential to enable remote, virtual connectivity to, and interactivity with, conversations about shared heritage. The ultimate goal was two-fold: (a) to help facilitate collaborative sense-making of our shared past, and (b) to aid the building of sustainable institutional and community/public working ties around emerging affinities, agendas and research questions in relation to public history and heritage.
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spelling nottingham-488712020-05-04T19:33:42Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/48871/ Strokes of serendipity: community co-curation and engagement with digital heritage Mutibwa, Daniel H. Hess, Alison Jackson, Tom This article explores the potential that community–led digital engagement with heritage holds for stimulating active citizenship through taking responsibility for shared cultural heritage and for fostering long-lasting relationships between local community heritage groups and national museums. Through the lens of a pilot project titled Science Museum: Community-in- Residence, we discovered that — despite working with community groups that were already loyal to and enjoyed existing working ties with the Science Museum in London, U.K — this undertaking proved challenging owing to a range of structural and logistical issues even before the application of digital devices and tools had been considered. These challenges notwithstanding, the pilot found that the creation of time and space for face-to-face dialogue and interactions between the Science Museum and the participating community heritage groups helped to establish the parameters within which digital co-curation can effectively occur. This, in turn, informed the development of a digital prototype with huge potential to enable remote, virtual connectivity to, and interactivity with, conversations about shared heritage. The ultimate goal was two-fold: (a) to help facilitate collaborative sense-making of our shared past, and (b) to aid the building of sustainable institutional and community/public working ties around emerging affinities, agendas and research questions in relation to public history and heritage. SAGE Publications 2020-02 Article PeerReviewed Mutibwa, Daniel H., Hess, Alison and Jackson, Tom (2020) Strokes of serendipity: community co-curation and engagement with digital heritage. Convergence, 26 (1). pp. 157-177. ISSN 1354-8565 Virtual collections; 3D modelling; Science Museum; community-in-residence; Ceramic City Stories; Bute Island Heritage; access; social history; active citizenship; community-institutional partnerships http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1354856518772030 doi:10.1177/1354856518772030 doi:10.1177/1354856518772030
spellingShingle Virtual collections; 3D modelling; Science Museum; community-in-residence; Ceramic City Stories; Bute Island Heritage; access; social history; active citizenship; community-institutional partnerships
Mutibwa, Daniel H.
Hess, Alison
Jackson, Tom
Strokes of serendipity: community co-curation and engagement with digital heritage
title Strokes of serendipity: community co-curation and engagement with digital heritage
title_full Strokes of serendipity: community co-curation and engagement with digital heritage
title_fullStr Strokes of serendipity: community co-curation and engagement with digital heritage
title_full_unstemmed Strokes of serendipity: community co-curation and engagement with digital heritage
title_short Strokes of serendipity: community co-curation and engagement with digital heritage
title_sort strokes of serendipity: community co-curation and engagement with digital heritage
topic Virtual collections; 3D modelling; Science Museum; community-in-residence; Ceramic City Stories; Bute Island Heritage; access; social history; active citizenship; community-institutional partnerships
url https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/48871/
https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/48871/
https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/48871/