scholarly journals Embodied Engagement with Narrative: A Design Framework for Presenting Cultural Heritage Artifacts

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean Ho Chu ◽  
Ali Mazalek

An increasing number of museum exhibits incorporate multi-modal technologies and interactions; yet these media divert visitors’ attention away from the cultural heritage artifacts on display. This paper proposes an overarching conceptual structure for designing tangible and embodied narrative interaction with cultural heritage artifacts within a museum exhibit so that visitors can interact with them to comprehend their cultural context. The Tangible and Embodied Narrative Framework (TENF) consists of three spectra (diegetic vs. non-diegetic, internal vs. external, and ontological vs. exploratory) and, considering how different interactions map along these three spectra, can guide designers in the way they integrate digital media, narrative, and embodiment. In this paper, we examine interactive narrative scholarship, existing frameworks for tangible and embodied interactions, and tangible and embodied narrative projects. We then describe the design of the TENF and its application to the pilot project, Mapping Place, and to the case study project, Multi-Sensory Prayer Nuts. The findings indicate that embodied engagement with artifacts through a narrative role can help visitors (1) contextualize the meaning of artifacts and (2) make personalized connections to the artifacts. Based on this work, we suggest design recommendations for tailoring the use of the TENF in the cultural heritage domain: simulate cultural practices, associate visitors with cultural perspectives, and provide simultaneous digital feedback. We conclude by describing future directions for the research, which include generating other possible projects using the TENF; collaborating with other designers and museum professionals; and exploring applications of the TENF in museum spaces.

Pedagogika ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 111 (2) ◽  
pp. 189-194
Author(s):  
Alicja Szerląg

Individual and common self-identifications determining their specificity take place in given areas, predominantly the cultural ones. However, what’s crucial is the perspective that conceptualizes such identities. For instance, sense of the national belonging of both individuals and communities constitutes one of such perspectives. It is shaped by various determinants, starting from cultural heritage of a given nation through established social and cultural practices which result from socialization and education at the cultural meeting points. The aim of this article is to present the cultural context of socialization and education exemplified by Polish families living in the Vilnius region with reference to those, among who’s the cultural difference is manifested by their national diversity. The issue that gave rise to this article was the attempt to interpret the cultural context of the pedagogical thought of Meilė Lukšienė, crucial for multicultural discourses within pedagogy.


Author(s):  
Gül Aktürk ◽  
Martha Lerski

AbstractClimate change is borderless, and its impacts are not shared equally by all communities. It causes an imbalance between people by creating a more desirable living environment for some societies while erasing settlements and shelters of some others. Due to floods, sea level rise, destructive storms, drought, and slow-onset factors such as salinization of water and soil, people lose their lands, homes, and natural resources. Catastrophic events force people to move voluntarily or involuntarily. The relocation of communities is a debatable climate adaptation measure which requires utmost care with human rights, ethics, and psychological well-being of individuals upon the issues of discrimination, conflict, and security. As the number of climate-displaced populations grows, the generations-deep connection to their rituals, customs, and ancestral ties with the land, cultural practices, and intangible cultural heritage become endangered. However, intangible heritage is often overlooked in the context of climate displacement. This paper presents reflections based on observations regarding the intangible heritage of voluntarily displaced communities. It begins by examining intangible heritage under the threat of climate displacement, with place-based examples. It then reveals intangible heritage as a catalyst to building resilient communities by advocating for the cultural values of indigenous and all people in climate action planning. It concludes the discussion by presenting the implications of climate displacement in existing intangible heritage initiatives. This article seeks to contribute to the emerging policies of preserving intangible heritage in the context of climate displacement.


Author(s):  
Jafar Asgari Arani

Digital media has been used to enhance language learning for decades. Since the aim of language learning is to develop communicative proficiency, using communication devices and channels that already exist in the classroom is a sensible way of exploiting opportunities for language practice. The ‘anywhere, anytime’ accessibility to educational contents that mobile SMSs, sometimes freely, offer users, means that mobile learning can extend the opportunities for study outside of the classroom. Given the importance of writing, especially for academic purposes in university, the study set a dual goal: firstly, to analyze the outcome of applying supplementary SMS activity to teach English syntax necessary to paraphrase sentences and secondly, to clarify the medical students' ideas about it. A quasi-experimental, pre-test and post-test, research design was utilized to investigate the hypotheses of this study. Two groups (each 40-second year students of medicine) were randomly assigned to be the experimental and the conventional group. Both groups were taught the same syllabus materials designed for English for Medical Purposes (EMP) II course in a 17-week semester in Kashan University of Medical Sciences, Iran. The former received the SMS –based supplementary contents in a scheduled pattern of delivery two times a week to strengthen their learning while the latter only was taught in a face to face setting. An open questionnaire was used to examine students feedback towards their attitudes. The validity of the questionnaire was examined by giving to a number of professors of English language. The data were also collected and analyzed through an Attitude/ Motivation questionnaire consisting of 12 Likert-scale items, pretest& posttest, paired-samples t-tests, and one way ANOWA. The pretest and posttest data paired t-test likert-scale items analyzed results showed that differences between the experimental and control groups were statistically significant. It was found that the effect of practicing SMS on the students' English syntax learning was positive. According to the findings, students receiving the supplementary English syntax SMSs noticeably improved their sentence paraphrasing performance and acquired higher grades during the post-test than those in conventional group. Qualitative data from interviews and questionnaires indicate that students hold positive attitudes towards receiving paraphrase syntactic points via SMS. Majority of students in this pilot project considered the educational program offered to be efficient, useful and beneficial. The data gathered revealed mobile syntactic supplementary SMSs can be integrated into EMP II course to enable students to develop better English sentence paraphrasing skills. Mobile SMS; Sentence Paraphrasing; Educational Tool; English for Medical Purposes


Ethnologies ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 36 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 297-324
Author(s):  
Hélène Giguère

This paper deals with European experiences of inscription of traditional cultural practices on UNESCO’s Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH). It will first establish the institutional context of the UNESCO’s listing within the framework of reflections on cultural rights. Then, the author briefly presents four European masterpieces in the Mediterranean area. A comparative analysis follows which specifically focuses on the multiplication of practitioners and on translocality; on the overlapping between institutions and artisans; on the use of intangible cultural heritage as a driver for local development via cultural tourism; and on the multimedia “museification” of the intangible. The comparative study of the listing of these intangible cultural heritage traditions also questions the value of customary law versus freedom of expression and creation. It reveals the tensions between the “purity” and “impurity” of cultural practices and social agents, as well as exclusions related to ethnicity, sex or territory. These tensions create new social divisions and remodel the link people have with cultural practices. An examination of gender sheds light on the marginality of women in public space.


2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Anton Mokhov ◽  
Andrey Shamanaev ◽  
Karina Kapsalykova

This article considers the emergency evacuation of the collections of the Chersonese Historical and Archaeological Museum from Sevastopol to Sverdlovsk during the Great Patriotic War, between September and December 1941. The authors analyse some issues concerning the preparation and transportation of the museum collection and the interaction between state structures and cultural institutions in wartime conditions. The study is based on unpublished archival materials from the funds of the State Archive of Sverdlovsk Region and the Documentation Centre of Public Organisations of Sverdlovsk Region. The study of problems connected with saving cultural heritage during military conflicts is relevant considering the threat of local wars in the modern world. At present, military actions pose serious risks of the destruction, damage, and illicit transfer of museum exhibits. The authors employ the historical and anthropological approach, paying a great deal of attention to the historiography of the issue of cultural heritage preservation during the Great Patriotic War. The experience of evacuating heritage collections from the Chersonese Museum is both unique and typical. One hundred and eight crates of artifacts, books, and archival documents were sent from Sevastopol to Sverdlovsk, accompanied by a single employee of the museum, S. F. Strzelecki. Owing to his effort, the priceless collection was successfully delivered to the rear. Most problems faced during the emergency evacuation of the Chersonese collections related to the deficit of material resources, rapid changes in the situation at the front, inefficient interaction between the bodies of power, academic and cultural institutions, and deficiencies in the transportation system. The authors argue that during the early stages of the Great Patriotic War, the conditions in the military and cultural spheres posed a significant threat to the preservation of cultural heritage. There were no mobilisation plans for museums and the authorities failed to assess the real risks of wartime. Taking these factors into account should help diminish the threat of cultural heritage loss during military conflicts.


2021 ◽  

Archives and the Cultural Heritage The edited volume Archives and the Cultural Heritage focuses on archives as institutions and to their tense relationship with archives as material. These dynamics are discussed in respect of the past, the present, and the future. The focus lies in the mechanisms the Finnish archive institutions have utilised when taking part in forming the cultural heritage and in debating the importance of the private archives in society. Within social sciences and history from the early 1990s onwards, the effects of globalisation have been seen as a new focal point for research. Momentarily, the archives saw the same paradigm shift as the focus of the archival studies proceeded from state to society. This brought forth the notion that the values of society are reflected in the acquisition of archival material. This archival turn draws attention to the archives as entities formed by cultural practices. The volume discusses cultural heritage within Finnish archives with diverse perspectives and from various time periods. The key concepts are cultural heritage and archives – both as institution and as material. Articles review the formation of archival collections spanning from the 19th to the 21st century and highlight that the archives have never been neutral or objective actors; rather, they have always been an active process of remembering and forgetting, a matter of inclusion and exclusion. The focus is on private archives and on the choices that guided the creation of the archives and the cultural perceptions and power structures associated with them. Although private archives have considerable social and research value, and although their material complements the picture of society provided by documentary data produced by public administrations, they have only risen to the theoretical discussions in the 21st century. The authors consider what has happened before the material ends up in the archive, what happens in the archive and what can be deduced from this. It shows how archival solutions manifest themselves, how they have influenced research and how they still affect it. One of the key questions is whose past has been preserved and whose is deemed worthy of preservation. Under what conditions have the permanently preserved documents been selected and how can they be accessed? In addition, the volume pays attention to whose documents have been ignored or forgotten, as well as to the networks and power of the individuals within the archival institution and to the politics of memory. The Archives and the Cultural Heritage is an opening to a discussion on the mechanisms, practices and goals of Finnish archival activities. It challenges archival organisations to reflect on their own operating models and to make visible their own conscious or unconscious choices. It raises awareness of the formation of the Finnish documentary cultural heritage, produces new information about private archives and participates in the scientific debate on the changing significance of archives in society. The volume is related to the Academy of Finland research project “Making and Interpreting National Pasts – Role of Finnish Archives as Networks of Power and Sites of Memory” (no 25257, 2011–2014/2019), University of Turku. Project partners Finnish Literature Society (SKS) and Society of Swedish Literature in Finland (SLS).


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Zozaya-Montes ◽  
Nicola Schiavottiello

The UNESCO World Heritage city of Évora (Portugal) hosted the second Heritales – International Heritage Film Festival in September 2017. In this edition the festival focused on current and past sustainable communities, selecting works that explored and problematized the relationship and coexistence of modernity and sustainability when applied to human groups and societies. The films presented the everyday life, knowledge, crafts and know-how of ordinary people highlighting the changes and challenges that the expansion of consumer-based economies, globalization and world politics have brought. As organizers, by focusing on sustainability in heritage context, we wanted to go beyond current preservation strategies of the tangible and intangible heritage, to promote a reflection on the “culture of sustainability” itself, looking at how sustainable ways-of-existence have characterized various communities and cultural practices worldwide. Since its first edition, the festival has been a space for the promotion of a critical understanding of cultural heritage, aimed to the broader public. By using emblematic historical places as stage, Heritales has challenged the mainstream cultural heritage scientific communication. Its proposal is to approach heritage’s issues through multiple types of media and artistic work such as films and documentaries but also cultural heritage’s games, exhibitions, theatre and performance, with talks and several communication strategies to facilitate the encounter between the authors and the public. Although the festival has received many positive feedbacks and the support of various entities such as the UNESCO Chair of the University of Évora (Portugal) and the FCT (Science and Technology Foundation, Portugal) it is still at its early stage of action. In this paper we would like to present the results of our experiment and analyse its concept and results, so that more collaborative and sustainable methodologies can also become a part of our plan of actionfor the organization of future events.


Author(s):  
Natalia V. Lopatina ◽  

The paper sets a scientific problem of updating the theoretical foundations for digitalization of the cultural heritage preservation. It carries out an analysis of modern risks that determine the need to modernize approaches to the preservation of cultural heritage and presents the levels, approaches, and tools for preserving cultural heritage in the context of digital transformation of cultural development and cultural practices. The tasks and key areas of applied informatics in culture related to the digitalization of cultural heritage preservation are specified. Principles of digitalization for the cultural heritage preservation are presented in four groups: technological principles, organizational principles, specialized principles of sectoral digitalization, principles of the digitalization projects effectiveness. The group of technological principles includes the compliance with standards, scalability of the applied methods and solutions, and the dialectics principle of universal and professionally oriented IT solutions. The group of organizational principles includes the unity principle for the digital space of culture, the coordination principle for the digitalization of cultural heritage preservation, and the principle of strategic unity. Specialized principles of sectoral digitalization are highlighted due to the nature of economic and digital development in the cultural sphere. The effectiveness principles for the digitalization projects determine the feasibility of investing to digitalization for the cultural heritage preservation. Digitalization of cultural heritage is a combination of new IT solutions, new design of the cultural information space, new relationships in the professional and social environment, and new economic models.


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