Digital heritage research re-theorised: ontologies and epistemologies in a world of big data

ABSTRACT

This article provides the first theoretical treatment of the ontologies and epistemologies of digital heritage research at the time of the interconnected and social web, based on extensive empirical and analytical investigation. We draw on observations and concepts developed while conducting the first study of public experiences of the past that utilised big data – over 1.4 million Facebook posts, comments and replies – to revisit or generate new theory from the ground up. We expect that this will help scholars from a range of fields in the humanities, social and computing sciences who are interested in undertaking digital heritage research to understand the deeper implications of their work, the complexities and limitations of the knowledge they create, and its value in exposing the processes via which heritage is made and assessed.

KEYWORDS:

• Digital heritage
• ontologies
• epistemology
• activism
• big data

Acknowledgments

This article was developed as part of the project ‘Iron Age and Roman Heritages: Exploring ancient identities in modern Britain’ (Ancient Identities in Modern Britain), funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, UK (2016–2019; ancientidentities.org). We are thankful to the other members of the Ancient Identities in Modern Britain team, Richard Hingley, Tom Yarrow and Kate Sharpe, for their comments on an earlier version of this paper, and to the two anonymous reviewers for their suggestions and insightful reflections.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. On 23 June 2016, a referendum was held to decide on this matter. It resulted in the victory of the camp advocating that the UK should cease being a member of the European Union.

2. We collected all the messages published since 2013, when the referendum was announced, and which were still available at the time.

3. The message was published on the public Facebook pages: Brexitbible, UK Brexit, Brexit Europe, brexitballs, BrexitUK, Brexit Apologies, GB Brexit, LSEBrexitVote, MemesVsBrexit, Economists for brexit, BrexitWarwick, BrexitUpdates and BrexitBargain.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council [AH/N006151/1].

Notes on contributors

Chiara Bonacchi

Chiara Bonacchi is a Lecturer in Heritage at the University of Stirling and Co-investigator on the Ancient Identities in Modern Britain project. Her research and teaching focuses on heritage studies – particularly, digital heritage and the study of public perceptions and experience of the past.

Marta Krzyzanska

Marta Krzyzanska is a Research Assistant on the Ancient Identities in Modern Britain project and a PhD Student in the Department of Archaeology, University of Cambridge. Her research interests are in computational archaeology and digital heritage.