The DISA Project. Packaging South African heritage as a continuing resource: content, access, ownership and ideology

Abstract

The intention of the DISA (Digital Innovation South Africa) Project is to build a continual digital resource through content based on the initiative of local scholars and dovetailing with the discussion of what it means to constitute a serialized archive of the liberation struggle. The user demand for materials selected is secondary. It is the larger questions which frame this project, such as national policies and processes around heritage, political identities, contested archives, the commodification of the Archive and intellectual property rights. In the South African context the digitization of heritage material for publication via the World Wide Web is a site of struggle and the real challenges are not technological or technical but social and political. Digitizing archives is more than merely collecting and aggregating documents in cyberspace. What is at stake is the politics of memory in digital form and how what is selected for digitization projects frames research agendas and plays a role in curriculum strategies. The development dimension is also paramount, how these projects enhance the public interest, service researchers in the South and promote South-South dialogue. This paper gives a brief overview of the DISA Project, to examine notions of partnership that cut across international boundaries, interrogate the ideological and intellectual ramifications including issues of content selection and access, and review South African policy framework discussions and recommendations.

A framework for digital preservation of Indigenous knowledge system (IKS) in repositories in South Africa

“…However, access to digitized collections and their preservation, especially in the longer term, may also be problematic. The problems are not only technological but also economic, political, legal and ethical (Pickover, 2008; de la Porte and Higgs, 2019). de la Porte and Higgs (2019) highlight a lack of expertise, human and financial resources, inadequate technology infrastructure and management as some of the challenges faced in digitizing cultural heritage materials.…”

Web archiving of indigenous knowledge systems in South Africa

“…However, access to digitized collections and their preservation, especially in the longer term, may be problematic. The problems are not only technological but also economic, political, legal, and moral (Britz and Lor, 2004; Pickover, 2008). According to Pickover (2008), the digitization of heritage materials in South Africa to make them available on the Internet is considered a big challenge due to social and political factors.…”

“…The problems are not only technological but also economic, political, legal, and moral (Britz and Lor, 2004; Pickover, 2008). According to Pickover (2008), the digitization of heritage materials in South Africa to make them available on the Internet is considered a big challenge due to social and political factors. Therefore, despite the advantages of digitising materials for preservation and access, the long-term preservation of these materials comes with issues such as technological obsolescence, lack of awareness, financial sustainability, policies, legislation, politics, security, and privacy (Adu and Ngulube 2017; Biyela, Oyelude and Haumba, 2016).…”

An ethical perspective on political‐economic issues in the long‐term preservation of digital heritage

“…The cases also suggest that issues of resources and control—political‐economic issues of asymmetric power relations among nations, particularly rich and poor nations—need to be considered (cf. Pickover, ). Following Woods (, p. 1), who uses the term “political economy” to refer to “the changing relationship between political systems … and economic forces,” we understand the political economy of information to refer to the effect of interacting political and economic forces on the creation, dissemination, and availability of information, especially their impact on the flows of information between developed and developing countries.…”