21st International Conference on Diversity in Organizations, Communities & Nations

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic, besides the urgent health crisis, has also intensified the debate on many different aspects of social life and policy, including access and inclusion problems. In that framework, digital access appears as the universal and most effective solution. Digital access to cultural heritage collections is not a novelty. It is crucial, however, to note how the recent discourse on empowerment through digital access potentially covers longstanding structural access inequalities. This is even more so in the case of intangible cultural heritage collections. In the framework of the ‘InCulture’ research project researchers in humanities, social sciences and informatics develop a method for the collaborative collection, narrative creation and presentation of intangible cultural heritage elements in Rhodes island, Greece. A research strategy based on oral history methodology is put into effect through a series of life narrative interviews. Through this process, separate elements of intangible cultural heritage are arranged and re-arranged into broader narratives in an open access platform. In an environment of wide digital illiteracy in Greece, the phenomenon is significantly higher among the senior interviewees. As a result, interviewees have minimal access to the extracted stories and the formed narratives. Apart from issues in building rapport with the interviewee, serious ethical questions arise as well. Although, “Giving Back” is considered an indispensable part of social research, due to the nature of the project, the researchers are “receiving” without “reciprocating” the trust. Despite the general praise of digital access, born-digital collections present structural inequalities and ethical research related issues.