[ecrea] Call for Papers, RESET Journal n°6: Digital Heritage and 'Heritagization'

Call for Papers

Digital Heritage and 'Heritagization'

Deadline for abstract submissions: December 15, 2014

Issue edited by Francesca Musiani (ISCC, CNRS, Paris-Sorbonne, UPMC) and 
Valérie Schafer (ISCC, CNRS, Paris-Sorbonne, UPMC)



The notion of ‘digital heritage’ outlined by UNESCO in 2003, in the 
frame of its Charter for the Preservation of Digital Heritage[1], 
designates both “digitized” and “born digital” resources (the latter 
being defined as resources for which “there is no other format but the 
digital object”). This dual meaning entails a reflection on digital 
heritage that is able to encompass continuity and long-term processes, 
as well as ruptures and breakdowns. Indeed, it calls for reflections 
about the ways in which digital resources can become or be qualified as 
heritage, but also about the ways in which heritage is ‘appropriated’ by 
the digital world. It therefore invites to pursue reflections, grounded 
in the social sciences, such as those on the ‘heritage question’ 
(Amougou, 2004) and what constitutes today the notion of heritage 
itself, as well as its ‘reinvention’ (Bourdin, 1984).

The rise of ‘digital heritage’ calls for empirical investigations on 
both its publics – existing or expected/envisaged – and its promoters, 
producers, preservers (Mussou, 2012). These investigations also need to 
explore institutions and their policies – public and private, collective 
and individual – shaping preservation and archiving practices in this 
field. The controversies that these policies raise (e.g. those that 
concern the ‘right to be forgotten’ and the right to memory), as well as 
the interactions of public authorities with preservation institutions 
(or among these institutions themselves), are interesting to analyze for 
the light they shed on the socio-technical and political dimensions of 
‘digital heritage’, as it becomes institutionalized.

The practices and procedures contributing to the shaping and the 
legitimization of digital heritage entail a number of choices, trials, 
tests, intertwined ‘scales of action’, and a social “work” undertaken by 
a variety of actors, including professional associations, amateurs, the 
public at large, libraries, museums, research groups volunteering to be 
in charge of specific archiving tasks or initiating preservation 
policies, international institutions or clusters of entities such as 
UNESCO or the International Internet Preservation Consortium.

A number of dynamics have contributed to shape, qualify and define 
‘born-digital’ documents as heritage: the creation of the Internet 
Archive foundation in 1996, followed by the appearance of its famous 
Wayback Machine (allowing to look for, and explore, specific feats of 
the Web past) and Brewster Kahle’s project to archive the “entire Web”; 
the Archive Team’s ‘rescue’ of online spaces such as Geocities or 
Mobileme; the institutional archiving of the Web, since 2006, by French 
institutions such as the Bibliothèque nationale de France and the 
Institut national de l’audiovisuel; the archiving of Twitter by the 
United States Library of Congress. All these dynamics are a testament to 
the plurality of actors engaged in this process, their incentives, their 
objectives at times complementary, at times divergent.

Insofar, ‘born digital’ heritage has been investigated with less 
attention than ‘digitized’ heritage (Dufrêne, 2013 ; Bachimont, 2014). 
Moreover, its exploration needs to be associated with reflections on 
another type of heritage, which may be defined as ‘heritage of the 
digital’ or ‘digital technologies as heritage’ and is constituted by 
hardware, software and related documentation, preserved and displayed 
thanks to the efforts of individuals, associations, museums of science, 
technology and computing, and a number of increasingly successful 
exhibitions (dedicated, e.g., to video games). These different 
directions converge towards a process of ‘heritagization’ (defined as 
patrimonialisation by Davallon, 2006), which is also worthy of exploration.

What do digital heritage (and the processes of heritagization) tell us 
about the relationship of our societies to their heritage, and to the 
digital itself? What happens when it is no longer enough to ‘digitize’ 
culture, but culture is, at once, digital? What are the consequences on 
heritage and is uses – social, cultural, political, economic and scientific?
Research directions

By means of empirical investigations, this issue of RESET wishes to 
contribute to shed light on the policies that shape, manage and develop 
digital heritage (Illien, 2011), as well as the actors and the issues 
underlying processes of heritagization. We propose three (not 
exhaustive) research directions for this theme, within which articles 
may be embedded (but do not necessarily have to): The shaping of digital 
heritage (Axis 1), Digital Heritagization (Axis 2), and Digital heritage 
and social legacy (Axis 3).
1.      The shaping of digital heritage
This axis will analyse the emergence and the ‘shaping’ of digital 
heritage, since UNESCO’s Charter for the Preservation of Digital 
Heritage has legitimized its exploration as a matter of pressing concern 
(2003 ; see also Lusenet, 2007).

Investigations addressing the issues, the strategies of appropriation of 
digital heritage, the perimeters of its preservation, as well as 
comparative studies of policies and preservation tools between different 
countries or actors, may find their place in this axis.
2.      Digital Heritagization
The study of discourses and ideologies accompanying these initiatives 
and the analysis of the publics of these digital cultural forms will 
allow to precise the contours of a digital heritage – and a heritage of 
the digital – which is in the process of finding its shape(s) and its 
social, political and economic dimensions. The diversity of actors 
involved in the processes of heritagization also opens up the 
possibility to undertake analyses of their incentives, motivations, 
strategies, interactions.
3.      Digital heritage and social legacy

Digital heritage needs to be embedded in a long-term perspective, which 
encompasses the relationship of societies to their heritage, so as to 
interrogate continuities and ruptures (Oury, 2012). Indeed, it calls for 
a renewed reflection on the notions of ‘common goods’ and ‘immaterial 
heritage’ (Jadé, 2012), the universality versus the geographical 
boundaries of heritage (Di Méo, 2008), the issue of the ‘patrimonial 
valuation’ of documents, or that of the ‘social status’ of objects 
(Davallon, 2006). Deserving attention are also the patrimonial value 
that some communities may attribute, e.g., to the preservation of 
specific discussion groups (Usenet communities, Google Groups etc.), or 
the willingness to pass knowledge of new forms of communication and 
expression on to future generations.

Finally, we need to take into consideration the articulation of these 
issues with ‘data markets’, broadly conceived, which are presently 
thriving; in particular, research would do well to explore the legal and 
judicial questions raised in terms of civil liberties, copyright, the 
preservation of personal data integrity, the right to be forgotten and 
the right to be remembered (Dulong de Rosnay, Musiani, 2012).


Calendar and practical information

The abstracts (3000 characters maximum) are due by December 15, 2014. 
They should be sent to the following address: (journal.reset /at/ gmail.com)

The proposal, written in either English or French, should state the 
research question, the methodology, and the theoretical framework used. 
It will focus on the scientific relevance of the proposed article in 
light of the existing literature and the call for papers, and may be 
accompanied by a short bibliography.

We would like to draw the authors' attention to a special section called 
Revisiting the Classics, devoted to new readings of classical authors 
and theories in light of the Internet.

The abstracts will be reviewed anonymously by the issue coordinators and 
the members of the editorial board. Authors of submissions selected at 
this stage will be asked to e-mail their full papers by May 5, 2015.

The journal Reset also accepts submissions to its “Varia” section, open 
to scholarly work in the humanities and social sciences dealing with an 
Internet-related object or method of research.
Calendar:

Deadline for abstract submission (3000 characters maximum): December 15, 
2014.

Responses to authors: January 15, 2015.

Deadline for full papers (7 000 words, plus bibliography): May 5, 2015.
Contact:

Editorial board (journal.reset /at/ gmail.com)

Coordinators

Francesca Musiani, (francesca.musiani /at/ cnrs.fr)

Valérie Schafer, (valerie.schafer /at/ cnrs.fr)


References

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situations concrètes. Paris, L’Harmattan.

ABBATE, Janet (2012). « L’histoire de l’Internet au prisme des STS », Le 
temps des médias, n°18, 170-180.

BACHIMONT, Bruno (2014). Patrimoine et numérique: technique et politique 
de la mémoire, INA.

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BOCZKOWSKI, Pablo, LIEVROUW, Leah (2008). « Bridging STS and 
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BRÜGGER, Niels (2012). « When the Present Web is Later the Past: Web 
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DAVALLON, Jean (2006). Le don du patrimoine : Une approche 
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DAVALLON, Jean. « Du patrimoine à la patrimonialisation », Entretien 
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http://crdp.ac-paris.fr/preacpatrimoinesetdiversite/index.php?q=node/33

DERROT, Sophie, FAUDUET, Louise, OURY, Clément, PEYRARD, Sébastien 
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DI MEO, Guy (2008). « Processus de patrimonialisation et? construction 
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DÖRING, Nicola (2006). « Personal Home Pages on the Web: A Review of 
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DOUGHERTY, Meghan, MEYER, Eric, MADSEN, Christine, VAN DEN HEUVEL, 
Charles, THOMAS, Arthur, WYATT, Sally (2010). Researcher Engagement with 
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DULONG DE ROSNAY, Mélanie, MUSIANI, Francesca (2012). « The Preservation 
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memory, 81-94.

DULONG DE ROSNAY, Mélanie (2011). « Réappropriation des données et droit 
à la rediffusion », Hermès, n° 59, CNRS Éditions, 65-66.

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JADÉ, Mariannick (2012). Le patrimoine immatériel: Perspectives 
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KALAY, Yehuda, KVAN, Thomas, AFFLECK, Janice (2008). New Heritage: New 
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LUSENET, Yola (2007). « Tending the Garden or Harvesting the Fields: 
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MASANES, Julien (2006). Web Archiving. Berlin Heidelberg, Springer.

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MUSSOU, Claude (2012). « Et le Web devint archive : enjeux et défis », 
Le Temps des Médias, n° 19, 259-266.

OURY, Clément (2012). « Une simple adaptation ? L’héritage du dépôt 
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PALOQUE-BERGES, Camille, SCHAFER, Valérie (2014). « Les archives des 
réseaux numériques : périmètres, enjeux, défis », Culture et Recherche 
n°129, dossier « Les archives », 68-69.

ROGERS, Richard (2013). Digital Methods. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.

VAN DEN HEUVEL, Charles, DOUGHERTY, Meghan (2009). « Historical 
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for research », Media in Transition MIT6 conference. 
http://web.mit.edu/comm-forum/mit6/papers/Dougherty_Heuvel.pdf

[1] 
http://www.unesco.org/new/fileadmin/MULTIMEDIA/HQ/CI/CI/pdf/mow/charter_preservation_digital_heritage_en.pdf






--
Francesca Musiani
Researcher, ISCC-CNRS | Associate researcher, CSI-MINES ParisTech
Co-Chair, ESN-IAMCR | Outreach officer, GigaNet | Member, ComNum
On the Web | On Twitter

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