Co-Creation’s Role in Digital Public Archaeology

Abstract

Simon (2010:187) notes that the purpose of co-creative community projects is “to give voice and be responsive to the needs and interests of local community members; to provide a place for community engagement and dialogue; and to help participants develop skills that will support their own individual and community goals.” This paper explores the role that co-creation currently plays in digital public archaeology and discusses how co-creative methods can inform broader archaeological digital engagement efforts. It begins by placing co-creation in its proper context in order to demonstrate its unique characteristics, its value, and how it complicates approaches used in other types of archaeological engagement projects, such as Open Access initiatives. The discussion then turns to evaluating its impact and the broader need to measure success in digital public engagement projects. A discussion of research from the archaeology and the cultural heritage sectors provides examples of evaluation metrics and methods for assessing digital public archaeology projects. The paper concludes by suggesting that all digital engagement projects can benefit from incorporating some of the principles that are inherently part of co-creative methods but that not all archaeological digital engagement projects should strive to be completely co-creative.

Whither Digital Archaeological Knowledge? The Challenge of Unstable Futures

“…Bollwerk 2015;Bonacchi et al 2015). To facilitate such efforts, processes from orthodox workflows have been decomposed into simple-to-execute microtasks, defining a limited menu of discrete functions that can be applied to the individual records that are dispensed and assigned one at a time to participants by the system.…”

The Untapped Potential of Low-Cost Photogrammetry in Community-Based Archaeology: A Case Study From Banks Island, Arctic Canada

“…While some communities have actively pursued digital replication of their heritage objects (Ngata, NgataGibson, and Salmond 2012), others do not wish to make such objects publically available due to their esoteric qualities (Boast and Enote 2013). Bollwerk (2015) cautions that movements in archaeology towards increased transparency through Open Access and Open Data may conflict with Indigenous cultural protocols, and that co-creating digital data and resources with Indigenous communities means ensuring that those communities can control access to the data. Concerns about intellectual copyright should play into any decision about creating digital models of heritage objects (Brown and Nicholas 2012), but become particularly important when posting information online, especially given that anyone with a 3D printer can turn a digital 3D model into a physical object.…”

“…Colwell-Chanthaphonh et al 2010;Nicholas and Andrews 1997) and community-based participatory research (Atalay 2012), in promoting the meaningful involvement of community members in all stages of the research process, from design through dissemination. The term 'co-creation' is increasingly applied to community-researcher collaborations at the most power-sharing end of the collaboration spectrum (Bollwerk 2015).…”

Reflecting on evaluation in public archaeology

“…Exploiting the affordances of digital technologies in order to encourage participation in public archaeology is an increasingly popular activity within the discipline (Bollwerk 2015;Richardson 2013). The practices of archaeological communication and coproduction within a wholly digital environment can offer new perspectives on public archaeology practice, and these projects are potentially less expensive and easier to manage than 'reallife' projects.…”