Alright here we go, the last reflection for the unit. I’ll open here by saying that I’ve found the themes and resources of this unit fascinating, and I think it has positively impacted how I think about not only digital heritage, but also heritage in general.
Anyway, lets move on to the last meme of the semester:
I really like Thomas Padilla’s language. I found phrases like the following inspiring.
“…rather the work is intended to build upon our commitments to support nothing less than the ability to experience life as worth living.”
What I also found inspiring is that in all three readings, and seen many times previously in the semester, we have seen projects that have sought to represent marginalised people, who are so often left out of traditional heritage lenses.
But as we saw earlier in the semester as, the same resources used to create projects that are ‘good,’ can be used to create projects that are awful.
I’m not quite sure where we stand ethically as far as restricting access to raw resources, such as Trove, but I assume we’re generally against it.
My point here is that although we can’t (and probably shouldn’t) restrict data from people, it is the ethical responsibility of digital heritage practitioners to create more projects that celebrate the diverse experiences of the world, than those that seek to divide.
