Culture Unbound: Journal of Current Cultural Research (Oct 2009)

Digital Media and the Order of Ethnography On Modes of Digitization in the Museum of World Culture

  • Andreas Henriksson

Journal volume & issue
Vol. 1
pp. 205 – 226

Abstract

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he article applies and elaborates an Actor-Network Theory approach to digitiza-tion. Defining digitization as the determining of relations between new digital media and old materials within local networks, the article attempts to investigate locally engendered ambiguities of such processes. The model is applied in a case study of the Swedish Museum of World Culture and its attempt at renewing old ethnographic objects through the use of digital media. The study is comprised of several interviews, observations and extensive document analysis. The article concludes by underlining the contingency and ambiguity involved in introducing digital media into the networks of old objects. It also addresses the cohesive and stabilizing roles played by computer programs and museum objects respectively.

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