Abstract
Digital scholarship is ubiquitous, where even the most Luddite of scholars use some form of digital technology in their research. Differences in the level of technology use have become a question of degree not kind. Currently in the second wave of Digital Humanities, Presner (2010) argues that Digital Humanities 2.0 introduces entirely new-born digital paradigms, methodologies, and publication models not derived from print culture. This new wave is “deeply generative, creating the environments and tools for producing, curating, and interacting with knowledge that is ‘born digital’ and lives in various digital contexts” (Presner 2010, para. 13). Using the case study of a Digital Humanities project called “The Waterford Memories Project”, this paper will consider both the role of born digital survivor testimony in confronting a difficult and disputed past in Ireland and, more broadly, how we create and access knowledge in this contested space. The Waterford Memories Project is an oral history driven study in digital humanities, publicly documenting survivor narratives of the Magdalene Laundries and Industrial Schools in the South-East of Ireland. The last Magdalene Laundry in Ireland closed in 1996. These institutions formed part of a system of coercive confinement, which incorporated a wide range of historical institutions used to confine both children and adults whose “crimes” were to act against the strict and punitive moral codes of the period, poverty, or mental illness. This paper will examine the role of born digital data in public humanities (in the form of the audio-recorded survivor oral histories), and frames the Waterford Memories digital humanities project in the technoculture and minimal computing literature, emphasising the overall need for a human-centred approach to technology at all stages of the research. Cultural stories can become fossilised and continue to perpetuate the silencing of survivors; it is therefore essential to consider how the openly available digital testimony contributes to the framing of cultural discourse around our history of coercive confinement in Ireland.
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Availability of data and material (data transparency)
All project data referred to in this article are available from www.waterfordmemories.com.
Notes
An Taoiseach is the Irish language term for head of the Government or Prime Minister.
The article “Born Digital and Marginalisation: An Empirical Study of How Born Digital Data Systems Continue the Legacy of Social Violence towards LGBTQI + Communities in Ireland” in this edition examines this research finding in detail.
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Acknowledgements
The Waterford Memories Project relies on many contributors. I would like to thank the survivors, volunteers, and my colleague Dr Kate McCarthy. An additional thank you to Dr Lorraine Bowman-Grieve for her feedback on this paper.
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The audiovisual recordings described in this paper were supported with funding from the Heritage Council, Ireland.
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O’Mahoney, J. The role of born digital data in confronting a difficult and contested past through digital storytelling: the Waterford Memories Project. AI & Soc 37, 949–958 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-021-01372-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-021-01372-0