Abstract
Australia is recognised as one of the world’s most culturally and ethnically diverse nations. Immigration has historically played an important role in the nation’s economic, social and cultural development. There is a pressing need to find innovative technological and archival approaches to deal with the challenge to digitally preserve Australia’s migrant heritage, especially given the ageing of the European communities that were the first to come under the postwar mass migration scheme. This paper reports on plans for a national collaborative project to develop the foundational infrastructure for a dynamic, interoperable, migrant data resource for research and education. The Migration Experiences platform will connect and consolidate heterogeneous collections and resources and will provide an international exemplar underscoring the importance of digital preservation of cultural heritage and highlighting the opportunities new technologies can offer. The platform will widen the scope and range of the interpretative opportunities for researchers, and foster international academic relationships and networks involving partner organisations (universities, libraries, museums, archives and genealogical institutions). In doing so, it will contribute to better recognition and deeper understanding of the continuing role played by immigrants in Australia’s national story.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsReferences
Amit, K., Bar-Lev, S.: Immigrants’ sense of belonging to the host country: the role of life satisfaction, language proficiency, and religious motives. Soc. Indic. Res. 124(3), 947–961 (2015)
United Nations: Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division. International Migration report 2017 (ST/ESA/SER.A/403) (2017)
Anderson, B.: Imagined Communities. Rev. ed. Verso, London (1991)
Arthur, P.L.: Things fall apart: identity in the digital world. Life Writ. 14(4), 541–550 (2017). Cardell, K., Douglas, K. (eds.) Locating Lives
Papastergiadis, N.: The Turbulence of Migration: Globalization, Deterritorialization and Hybridity. Wiley, Hoboken (2018)
Arthur, P.L.: Transcultural studies in Australian identity. In: Arthur, P.L. (ed.) Migrant Nation: Australian Culture, Society and Identity. Anthem, London (2018)
Szekeres, V.: Museums and multiculturalism: too vague to understand, too important to ignore. In: Griffin, D., Paroissien, L. (eds.) Understanding Museums: Australian Museums and Museology. National Museum Australia, p. 8 (2011). http://nma.gov.au/research/understanding-museums/index.html
Tudge, A.T.: Celebrating Australian multiculturalism on harmony day, 21 March 2018, Press release. http://minister.homeaffairs.gov.au/alantudge/Pages/celebrating-australian-multiculturalism-on-harmony-day.aspx
See Australian Bureau of Statistics data. http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/lookup/Media%20Release3. See also Nihas, V.: Migration heritage: Beyond the memory box. MHC Forum (1999). http://www.migrationheritage.nsw.gov.au/mhc-reports/forum99/nihas.html
Museums in Australia: 1975 Report of the Committee of Inquiry on Museums and National Collections including the Report of the Planning Committee on the Gallery of Aboriginal Australia, p. 5 (1975). http://www.nma.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0018/1269/Museums_in_Australia_1975_Pigott_Report.pdf
Peters, N., Marinova, D., van Faassen, M., Stasiuk, G.: Digital preservation of cultural heritage. In: Zacher, L.W. (ed.) Technology, Society and Sustainability, pp. 107–114. Springer, Cham (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-47164-8_7. See also Arthur, P.L., Ensor, J., van Faassen, M., Hoekstra, R., Peters, N.: Migrating people, migrating data: digital approaches to migrant heritage. J. Jpn. Assoc. Digit. Hum. (accepted, forthcoming in 2018/19)
Macquarie Dictionary, p. 831. https://www.macquariedictionary.com.au
Hunt, E.: Barely half of population born in Australia to Australian-born parents. The Guardian (Australia edition), 27 June 2017. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/jun/27/australia-reaches-tipping-point-with-quarter-of-population-born-overseas
UNESCO: Charter on the Preservation of the Digital Heritage, UNESCO Organisation des Nations Unies pour l’éducation, la science et la culture (2003). https://www.unesco.nl/sites/default/files/dossier/charter_digitaal_erfgoed.pdf?download=1
See Australian Government Aliens Act 1947. https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/C2004C01845
Migrant: Mobilities and connection project. Huygens ING, The Netherlands. https://www.huygens.knaw.nl/migrant-mobilities-and-connection/?lang=en
Timbuctoo (open source repository system). Huygens ING, The Netherlands. https://www.huygens.knaw.nl/timbuctoo/, https://www.clariah.nl/
Centre for Digital Humanities, Perm State University, Russia. Digitalhistory.ru
Povroznik, N.: Virtual museums and cultural heritage: challenges and solutions. In: Mäkelä, E., Tolonen, M., Tuominen, J. (eds.) Proceedings of the Digital Humanities in the Nordic Countries 3rd Conference, Helsinki, Finland, 7–9 March (2018). http://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2084/short14.pdf
Humanities Networked Infrastructure (HuNI). https://huni.net.au
The 2008 Roadmap included recognition of the Humanities area: ‘Six capability areas have emerged as a result that essentially incorporate the former priority capabilities . . . together with a new capability recognising the important and pervasive influences of the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences’ (p. viii), and ‘A new capability in the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences (HASS) has been identified in recognition of the wide-ranging contributions these disciplines make to the national interest. Investment in this area would relate to a HASS eResearch infrastructure including data creation and digitisation of research materials’ (p. 17)
Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation. https://www.libertyellisfoundation.org/AFIHC-celebrates-grand-opening
Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation. https://www.libertyellisfoundation.org
Other examples of emigration museums include the new Irish Emigration Museum in Dublin, Ireland; the House of Emigrants in Vaxjo, Sweden; and the Red Star Line Museum in Antwerp, Belgium
Grever, M.: Fear of plurality: historical culture and historiographical canonization in Western Europe. In: Epple, A., Schaser, A. (eds.) Gendering Historiography: Beyond National Canons, pp 45–64. Verlag, Frankfurt (2009)
UNESCO: 37 C/4 Medium-Term Strategy 2014–2021. UNESCO, Paris (2014)
UNESCO: 39 C/5 Volume 1 Draft Resolutions First Biennium 2018–2019. UNESCO, Paris (2017)
Acknowledgement
This research is supported by the research grant ‘Digital Preservation and Documentation of Australia’s Migrant Cultural Heritage’, Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), 2018–2019.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this paper
Cite this paper
Arthur, P.L., van Faassen, M., Hoekstra, R., Povroznik, N., Hearn, L., Peters, N. (2018). Migration Experiences: Acknowledging the Past, and Sustaining the Present and Future. In: Ioannides, M., et al. Digital Heritage. Progress in Cultural Heritage: Documentation, Preservation, and Protection. EuroMed 2018. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 11197. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-01765-1_25
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-01765-1_25
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-01764-4
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-01765-1
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)