Chapter 5 1948

Anthropocene; Environment and sustainability; Environmental humanities; Environmental media; Indigenous; Media studie

History, Historical Archaeology, and Cultural Resource Management: A Case Study from Jasper County, South Carolina

Virgil Noble (1996) has noted a deficiency in historical archaeological research within the sphere of cultural resource management, attributable to inadequacies within regulatory agencies, resulting in trite methodological exercises. This thesis demonstrates that another problem can be found in the basic methodology of historical archaeology as translated into practice in compliance archaeology. A review of a data recovery project in Jasper County, South Carolina shows that the necessary relationship between the documentary and archaeological particulars, that are not well codified in the standards for archaeological investigations, led to the creation of a program of study that would likely lead to a flat minimalist study. As such, a more thorough understanding of a sites history and context is needed in order to structure a research design prior to field investigations, subsequent analyses, and interpretations to produce more relevant and meaningful studies

Mapping Meaning: learnings from indigenous mapping technology for Australia's digital humanities mapping infrastructure

Time Layered Cultural Map (TLCMap) is an ambitious, ARC funded, digital humanities mapping infrastructure initiative in Australia. TLCMap infrastructure is for everyone, but the inspiration, conception and development of it has always had Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander mapping at its heart. If Australian culture is world famous for anything it is the world’s oldest living culture, a culture for which connection to country is of vital importance. Many years ago, when a simple desire took shape to make it possible for people to add cultural layers to maps that other people could find, it was unthinkable without first considering Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture and mapping technology, 'learning from' rather than 'learning about'. Indigenous views on country and its representation have factored into the software architecture and vision from the beginning. Aileen Moreton-Robinson describes indigenous and colonizing cultures as ‘incommensurable'. While no translation is perfect, iconic art works such as Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri's Warlugolong demonstrate how indigenous ontologies and ethics can be translated across cultures. Reading maps, we start learning to read the multilayered intersecting meanings of ‘country’ itself, enhancing our ethical relationships to places. The transformational effect that the Colonial Frontier Massacres project has had on Australian culture was a catalyst sparking recognition of the important role digital humanities maps can play in the lives of Australians and played a role in the truth telling process of reconciliation. Five of the main projects in TLCMap are focused on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture and both acknowledge history and celebrate living culture. These projects come to TLCMap already as collaborations with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, and indigenous Australians are employed in TLCMap software development and research

Exhibiting Human Rights: Making the Means of Dignity Visible

This dissertation examines the visual communication of human dignity. With the opening of human rights museums, such as the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, human dignity’s visual communication has been exposed to new issues of corporeal and mediated expression. In response to photographic mediation and theory, which often poses individuals as central claimants or possessors of human dignity, human rights museums openly suggest that communities and relationships between individuals are central to human dignity’s visibility outside of the law. As such, I propose that curatorial mediation is important to the contemporary apprehension of human dignity because its notable forms – atlases, albums, and museums –help to shift conversations from individual human persons to communities of human beings. Exhibiting Human Rights: Making the Means of Dignity Visible theorizes human dignity as a relational property, which entails thinking about larger constellated strategies of representation. I theorize human dignity as a product of life shared with others, across families, communities, cultures, and borders, seen most dramatically in curatorial forms. Combining museological notions of curation with Walter Benjamin’s concept of the constellation, this thesis demonstrates how a theory of human dignity founded on relation also grapples with its tendencies towards rationality and immateriality. Working from these forms and concepts my key questions include: How has human dignity been visually depicted? How can a focus on curation help to support a relational theorization of human dignity? And, how can an emphasis on the history of the affiliation between human dignity and curation help us to understand human rights recent move into museums? Curation, I argue provides a framework that acknowledges how our means of existence create demands on others, thus expanding conversations about the ends of human dignity. Three case studies aid in the development of my argument: 1) August Sander’s People of the 20th Century (1910-1964); 2) UNESCO’s Human Rights Exhibition Album (1950); and 3) The Canadian Museum for Human Rights (2014). Shifting attention towards exhibitionary projects offers creative and constitutive language that speaks to the communities and alliances foundational to human dignity’s contemporary communication and significance

Crossing Experiences in Digital Epigraphy: From Practice to Discipline

Although a relevant number of projects digitizing inscriptions are under development or have been recently accomplished, Digital Epigraphy is not yet considered to be a proper discipline and there are still no regular occasions to meet and discuss. By collecting contributions on nineteen projects – very diversified for geographic and chronological context, for script and language, and for typology of digital output – this volume intends to point out the methodological issues which are specific to the application of information technologies to epigraphy. The first part of the volume is focused on data modelling and encoding, which are conditioned by the specific features of different scripts and languages, and deeply influence the possibility to perform searches on texts and the approach to the lexicographic study of such under-resourced languages. The second part of the volume is dedicated to the initiatives aimed at fostering aggregation, dissemination and the reuse of epigraphic materials, and to discuss issues of interoperability. The common theme of the volume is the relationship between the compliance with the theoretic tools and the methodologies developed by each different tradition of studies, and, on the other side, the necessity of adopting a common framework in order to produce commensurable and shareable results. The final question is whether the computational approach is changing the way epigraphy is studied, to the extent of renovating the discipline on the basis of new, unexplored questions

Beyond legal compliance: A model for collaborative heritage management at the Juniper Terrace site, Coconino National Forest

In this thesis I evaluate my summer internship with the Coconino National Forest (Coconino NF) and the development of a site management plan for the Juniper Terrace site, a 12th century pueblo community located north of Flagstaff. I examine the challenges of heritage management within the framework of the Forest agency, reflecting on my own experiences and providing recommendations for future management. I review the trajectory of heritage management theory in the United States, and consider how Indigenous theories and multivocality can and should inform the management of heritage resources. Approaches of Community-based Participatory Research (CBPR) have recently been adopted successfully in archaeological practice, and I advocate for an engaged and community-based approach to heritage management. I consider how my internship experience and the management of Juniper Terrace can be translated into the development of a model for the management of heritage resources on the Coconino NF, and how such a model can promote the sustainable management of more heritage sites on the Forest through collaboration and co-management between the agency and local descendant communities

World Cup television

In the last year of the first decade of the 21st century, in the verge of breaking into the era of digital television, it is important to know what kind of television model is available in Portugal. The analysis of the news coverage of the FIFA 2010 World Cup will certainly help in finding the answers. In this article, we present a study that centers its focus on news formats related to this great media event, broadcasted in both generalist as well as cable news networks between the 11th of June and the 11th of July 2010 (the opening and closing dates of the competition). That analysis, based upon 604 broadcasts, sought to discover the means for viewer integration in television broadcasts and who was summoned by the television studios to participate in the discussions that they promoted. The data collected clearly shows that this World Cup TV is still very much closed to public participation and circumscribed to a small group of guests, most of who come from the journalistic field. It seems impossible to mention a third stage in the audiovisual world in the face of this reality. Post-television can wait.Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT

Revealing new dynamics in the industrial city : a study of human/horse relations in Montreal's public space, 1860-1916

Ma recherche vise à mieux comprendre comment les relations entre les humains et les chevaux ont été négociées à Montréal, à l’époque où la ville est en voie d’industrialisation. Je montre comment l’idée du « Progrès » s’incarne à Montréal et entraîne des changements importants dans la façon dont les gens voient, littéralement et allégoriquement, la ville en relation avec la place accordée aux animaux, et plus spécifiquement aux chevaux, entre 1860-1916. En m’appuyant sur une analyse de données recueillies dans les archives de la Ville de Montréal, du Musée McCord, de Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec et de l’Université McGill, tels que les Fonds de la Commission de Police de Montréal et les règlements municipaux, ainsi que des images, photos, plans d’époque et des articles de journaux, je montre comment ces relations changeantes s’inscrivent de façon tangible dans la ville qui s’industrialise. Cette recherche examine la question en utilisant trois méthodes exploratoires, et parfois expérimentales. En premier lieu, une recherche dans les règlements municipaux et leur analyse révèlent la façon dont les autorités abordent l’agentivité des chevaux. Ensuite, au moyen d’articles de journaux d’opinion tirés des archives de la Parks and Playgrounds Association, nous nous penchons sur l’espace partagé par les chevaux dans le parc du Mont-Royal. Pour terminer, nous examinons, grâce à une modélisation 3D, le partage de l’espace dans un cadre plus urbanisé, à l’angle des rues Sherbrooke et Guy. Nous retraçons le déplacement des chevaux des cochers pour visualiser les changements apportés dans le cadastre urbain et son impact sur les relations humains/chevaux.My research aims to better understand how human-horse relations were negotiated in Montreal at a time when the city is in the process of industrialization. I show how the idea of "Progress" is embodied in Montreal and brings about important changes in the way people see, literally and allegorically, the city in relation to the place given to animals, and more specifically horses, between 1860 and 1916. Based on an analysis of data collected in the Archives de Montréal, the McCord Museum Archives, the BAnQ and McGill University Archives, such as the Montreal Police Commission's funds and municipal by-laws, as well as images, photographs, maps, plans and journal articles I demonstrate how these changing relations inscribe themselves onto the city which is becoming industrial. To achieve this, this research project examines the issue using three exploratory and sometimes experimental methods. First, the question of municipal regulations and how to approach the agency of horses is examined. Then, through newspaper articles from the Parks and Playgrounds Association, we look at the space shared by horses in Mount Royal Park. Finally, we examine, by 3D modeling, the street corner of Sherbrooke and Guy, as well as trace the movement of the horses of coachmen to visualise the changes brought about in the urban cadaster and its impact on human/horse relations

Maximum Entropy Modeling of the Iron Age Settlement Distributions in River Valleys of Turku Region, Southwest Finland

Species distribution models (SDM) are predictive modeling tools widely used in analytical biology that have also found applications in archaeological research. They can be used to quickly produce predictive maps for a variety of use cases like conservation and to guide field surveys. Modern SDMs take advantage of advances in computing like machine learning and artificial intelligence to achieve better predictions. In this study Maximum Entropy, or MaxEnt, machine learning SDM algorithm was used to create predictive models of the Iron Age settlement around Turku region in Southwest Finland, focusing on Aurajoki, Savijoki, and Vähäjoki river valleys. MaxEnt is the most popular SDM algorithm, largely due to its ability to create predictions based on presence-only data and consistently good performance. Only open access -data was used, and the selection of variables was based on availability and previous studies. The results show that MaxEnt can create in some cases surprisingly accurate models based on archaeological information, but the results were limited by the quality of existing data. The most influential variable was distance to water, which was the majority contributor whenever present. Even without the variable, the predicted distributions followed the waterways closely due to the influence of other variables. It was concluded that to improve the accuracy of the results the quality of the data should be a major focus. The results should also be tested through field surveys. Additionally, attention should be based on the model conception