Deconstructing the digital infrastructures supporting archaeological knowledge

The last 30 years have seen significant investments in the development of digital infrastructures to support archaeological practice. From field recording systems to national data archives, these have come to play an increasingly dominant role in the collection, management, and access to the data used in the creation of new archaeological knowledge. Although a lot of attention has been paid to the technical creation of such systems, much less is said about the wider political, cultural and social aspects of these infrastructures. Focusing on large-scale national or transnational data infrastructures, this paper seeks to lay the groundwork for such an inquiry by making the infrastructure the centre of analysis, rather than its technical aspects. The paper asks how infrastructures emerge, are sustained, become embedded in practice, and how they subsequently contextualise and influence the formation of archaeological knowledge. The underlying and frequently hidden complexities of infrastructures and their nature as always under development should make a critical understanding of their implementation and application, the opportunities they offer, the constraints they impose, and the perspectives they adopt, an important precursor to their knowledgeable use in practice

The Aftermaths of Participation: Outcomes and Consequences of Participatory Work with Forced Migrants in Museums

How do participatory museum projects with forced migrants impact both the museum and the participants? What happens during these projects and what is left of them afterwards? Based on interviews with museum practitioners, facilitators and project participants, the author brings together unique insights into museum work with forced migrants. Her study of participatory projects in Germany, the Netherlands and the UK reveals museums' limiting infrastructures, the shortcomings of their ethical frameworks, and the problems of addressing forced migrants as 'communities'. Outlining the diverging objectives, experiences and outcomes of participatory projects, she suggests how these might be united in practice

The Aftermaths of Participation

How do participatory museum projects with forced migrants impact both the museum and the participants? What happens during these projects and what is left of them afterwards? Based on interviews with museum practitioners, facilitators and project participants, Susanne Boersma brings together unique insights into museum work with forced migrants. Her study of participatory projects in Germany, the Netherlands and the UK reveals museums' limiting infrastructures, the shortcomings of their ethical frameworks, and the problems of addressing forced migrants as 'communities'. Outlining the diverging objectives, experiences and outcomes of participatory projects, she suggests how these might be united in practice

Learning to work between information infrastructures

This study investigates the implications of the interplay of multiple information infrastructures to learning and conducting work and to its related information work practices, and how the materialities of work and its infrastructures play into their intermingling. The present study is based on an ethnography of a week-long archaeological teaching excavation conducted by the author. The excavation took place on a lithic site in a Nordic country in Spring 2016. The analysis of the ethnographic data was based on constant comparative method and close reading. Four major information infrastructures were identified in the empirical setting. They and their diverging materialities were intimately linked to how information work was conducted at the excavation. The presence of two infrastructures designed for the same purposes of documenting the site and excavation process caused problems with scheduling and managing the work, but did at the same time make their associated premises and infrastructural obligations visible for the participants of the excavation. The older of these two infrastructures played a potentially important role as an infrastructural stalwart, an infrastructure that stabilised another infrastructure. The presence of parallel, overlapping information infrastructures makes them visible and potentially less effective but also unveils their underpinnings for learning and insights in their role in information work