The Ethnological Archive: Memory and Technology (original) (raw)
Related papers
Visions and Traditions. Knowledge Production and Tradition Archives, 2018
The aim of this article is twofold: a) to draw attention to the research opportunities that will open up when or if the Scandinavian folklore archives are digitized; and b) to draw attention to the fact that quite simple digitizing has consequences for the arguments that led to the greatest reorientation in the history of folkloristics/ethnology/cultural studies. The aim is not to discuss digitizing in general, or the technological or ethical challenges and opportunities linked to digitizing, by which I mean the way digitized material can or should be organized or made available. Others have dealt with this, see e.g. Kjus 2013 or Skott 2008 on making material accessible, or the references on the technological aspects under 'Digitizing: a game changer' below. Nor is the aim to criticize others for having digitized too little, nor, in fact, to lobby for digitization. Many others have done this (e.g. the two previous references and Tangherlini 2013a), and it should be obvious to everyone that digitizing is becoming more and more important. - The book is the winner of the 2018 Brenda McCallum Prize for works of excellence and innovation.
Folklore Archives and the Methodological Reconfigurations of Romanian Ethnology.pdf
Revista de etnografie și folclor/ Journal of Ethnography and Folklore, 2017
This study proposes a rereading of the folklore archives in Romania, starting from an analysis of the documentary fund preserved in the Archive of the Folklore Society from the Faculty of Letters, “Babes-Bolyai” University, in Cluj. The study shows that, in addition to being realms of memory (Pierre Nora ) or collections of traditions (in the terms of classical folklore studies), these archives actually document the research methodology, serving as witnesses to the history of the discipline – ethnology, in this case. Keywords: folklore archive, methodology, fieldwork, archiving, history of Romanian ethnology.
Karamanes E. (ed.), Du terrain à l’archive: Les archives de folklore et d’ethnologie en tant que pôles de recherche, d’éducation et de culture, Actes du Ière Conférence du GTF de la SIEF, Athènes, 14-16 septembre 2018, Publications du CRFH de l’Académie d’Athènes 34, Athènes 2019, p. 305-320, 2019, 2019
Ioannis Karachristos, Paraskevas Potiropoulos, “Modern approaches to traditional archives: Specialized databases as tools for documenting ethnographic material. The Hellenic Folklore Research Centre Archive of Popular Legends”, in Evangelos Karamanes (sous la direction de), Du terrain à l’archive : les archives de folklore et d’ethnologie en tant que pôles de recherche, d’éducation et de culture. Actes du XXXIème Atelier du réseau FER-EURETHNO, Ière Conférence du Groupe de Travail Francophone de la SIEF, Athènes, 14-16 septembre 2018. Centenaire du Centre de Recherches du Folklore Hellénique de l’Académie d’Athènes (1918-2018). Publications du Centre de Recherches du Folklore Hellénique de l’Académie d’Athènes 34, Athènes 2019, p. 305-320. In our paper we examine the way we have reread the Hellenic Folklore Research Centre’s (HFRC) Archive of Popular Legends, to create a digital repository and a specialized on-line database. Respecting the HFRC’s scientific tradition, we tried to enrich the existing documentation, to reread the data in order to reveal silences of the past and to connect the Popular Legends Database with the HFRC Archive as a whole, to achieve a more comprehensive interpretation of legends. We consider the management of the Popular Legends Database to be a respond both to contemporary needs and prospects, a respond that transforms the Archive of Popular Legends into a “living archive” in compliance with recent theoretical and methodological discussions on archives.
Karamanes E. (ed.), Du terrain à l’archive: Les archives de folklore et d’ethnologie en tant que pôles de recherche, d’éducation et de culture, Actes du Ière Conférence du GTF de la SIEF, Athènes, 14-16 septembre 2018, Publications du CRFH de l’Académie d’Athènes 34, Athènes 2019, p. 289-304, 2019
Ioannis Karachristos, Paraskevas Potiropoulos, Hellenic Folklore Research Centre, Academy of Athens “From repository to a living archive: a proposal for the documentation of ethnographic material in the HFRC archive”, in Karamanes Evangelos (ed.), Du terrain à l’archive: Les archives de folklore et d’ethnologie en tant que pôles de recherche, d’éducation et de culture, Actes du XXXIème Atelier du réseau FER-EURETHNO, Ière Conférence du Groupe de Travail Francophone de la SIEF, Athènes, 14-16 septembre 2018. Centenaire du Centre de Recherches du Folklore Hellénique de l’Académie d’Athènes (1918-2018), Publications du Centre de Recherches du Folklore Hellénique de l’Académie d’Athènes 34, Athènes 2019, pp. 289-304. Summary: In our paper, after a short overview of aims, research and studying methods of the HFRC, we discuss its contemporary policies concerning the HFRC archive, the creation and maintenance of digital records and their dissemination through on-line databases. Our aim is to propose alternative classificatory principles for the documentation of the ethnographic material that is reposited in the HRFC archive, principles that confront the challenge of both re-reading the archive and responding to the contemporary and future prospects. Our goal is to provide a modern “tool” that is compatible with international standards for the electronic (online) documentation of ethnographic material, with recent theoretical and methodological critical approaches and, finally, with the HFRC’s scientific tradition.
Opening Archives to Society: the Experience from the Folklore Archive at Rovira i Virgili University
Folklore: Electronic Journal of Folklore, 2023
The Folklore Archive at the Rovira i Virgili University (URV) is a university archive. The materials it stores are products of the fieldwork conducted by students on the Catalan Studies programme and the work done by professors researching into folk literature. From the year of its creation to the present, the Archive has adapted to the needs of the society of which it is a part. The present article discusses two issues. First, it explains how the results from our university research are transferred from the Archive to society (web, specialized digital resources, social networks, etc.). And second, it describes a specific activity entitled La ciutat a cau d'orella (The whispering city), which focuses on legends and involves several entities in Tarragona (city hall, public library, schools, youth organizations, writing workshops, etc.). This activity can be regarded as a way of developing mutual relations between the academic world and the general public.
Ethnographic Archives in Different Epistemological Paradigms
Gheorghe Manolache (Ed.), Intercultural Exchanges in the Age of Globalization, 2015
This study interrogates two cultural projects that correspond to different epistemological paradigms: the Folklore Archive of the Romanian Academy in Cluj-Napoca, which was set up beginning with the interwar period in the twentieth century, and the ethnographic archive from the Eric-de-Dampierre Library in Paris, which was established in the 1980s. This approach demonstrates that the archival project from Romania is dominated by the principles of the positivist paradigm, national identity representing the central concept here. By contrast, the project for an ethnographic archive in the Western cultural space is dominated by the principles of the postmodern paradigm, the central concept being the identity of the discipline.
Folkmedia: A Modern Approach on Preservation of Romanian Folklore Archive
2015
The present paper presents the results of a national project - Folkmedia - focused on a new form of a modern archive according to a strict risk assessment plan, in order to assure the collection's viability and increase its visibility. Significant part of the archive recordings has been successfully assessed and the digitization process is running at full speed. The digitized collection are subjected to decontamination using anoxia before their relocation to the dedicated storage facility, following a one-way route. Two multifaceted databases have been elaborated in order to serve the needs of the archive researchers and also to grant access via the internet to various categories of users. The data bases contain, besides the basic archive information, complex documentation obtained using advanced photonic techniques.