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

Project start date: 2009-02 Project end date: 2012-01
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. 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.
Era(s): 
Country/region(s): 
Methods usedCategory
2d Scanning and photographyData capture
Resource sharingCommunication and collaboration
Motion captureData capture
Sound generationData capture
Sound recordingData capture
CurationStrategy and project management
Funding sources: 
Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC)
Content types created: 
Dataset/structured data, Moving Image, Sound, Still Image/Graphics, Text
Source material used:  
Sierra Leonean collections dispersed in the global museumscape.
Digital resource created:  
Web- and CD-based digital heritage resource currently being developed, which will be available at http://www.sierraleoneheritage.org
Access to digital resource:  
Open Access
Data Formats created: 
Graphics interchange format file (GIF), Windows Media Audio (WMA)
Publications:  
Basu, Paul. Forthcoming, 2011. 'Object diasporas, resourcing communities: Sierra Leonean collections in the global museumscape', Museum Anthropology 34(1)

Institutions affiliated with this project: 

UK HE institutions involved:
University College London
UK HE institutions involved:
British Museum
Glasgow Museums
Brighton Museum and Art Gallery
Sierra Leone National Museum

Project staff and expertise: 

Principal staff member:Dr Paul Basu
Other staff:
External expertise:


Metadata on this arts-humanities.net record
Author(s) of recordPaul Basu
TitleReanimating cultural heritage: digital repatriation, knowledge networks and civil society strengthening in post-conflict Sierra Leone
Record created2010-07-22
Record updated2011-03-03 12:25
URL of recordhttp://www.arts-humanities.net/node/3708
Citation of recordPaul Basu: Reanimating cultural heritage: digital repatriation, knowledge networks and civil society strengthening in post-conflict Sierra Leone.
<http://www.arts-humanities.net/node/3708>
created: 2010-07-22, last updated 2011-03-03 12:25