Capacity Building or Community Making? Training and Transitions in Digital Archaeology

Part of: Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "Capacity Building or Community Making? Training and Transitions in Digital Archaeology," at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Critiques of the limited use of digital data, advancement of data management, and alternative dissemination in archaeology consistently hinge on the lack of training and knowledge of digital theory and practice. This issue is complex, taking in different demographics, specializations, and perspectives in archaeology and deeply entangled in issues of access, inclusivity, expertise, and privilege. The solution, then, must also be multi-dimensional, developing active communities of researchers, data managers and developers, advocates, instructors and students to shape digital scholarship in future. Repeated calls for better training and support to create such communities have been heard for more than a decade at the SAA meetings, ranging from demands for capacity building in 2006 and 2009 to more recent concerns with the persistent lack of digital literacy in 2016 and 2017. This session will therefore bring together diverse approaches to transitioning students, organizations, and descendant and stakeholder communities toward effective digital practice through training, mentorship, and support across sectors (CRM, heritage, academia) and levels of training. It is the intention of this session to take stock of existing capacity building projects to mobilize new resources and initiatives with the express interest of contributing to the growth of strong communities of digitally-engaged scholars.

Other Keywords
digital archaeology • Education/Pedagogy • Communities of Practice • Community engagement • Digital Archaeology: GIS • Education • Ethics • Data Management • Pedagogy • Historic

Geographic Keywords
Worldwide • Canada (Country) • North America (Continent) • Alberta (State / Territory) • Yukon Territory (State / Territory) • British Columbia (State / Territory) • Saskatchewan (State / Territory) • Territorial Collectivity of Saint Pierre (Country) • Manitoba (State / Territory) • Northwest Territories (State / Territory)

Resources Inside This Collection (Viewing 1-13 of 13)

  • Documents (13)
Documents
  • Access to Information: The Case of Birch Island (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Julia Brenan.

    This is an abstract from the "Capacity Building or Community Making? Training and Transitions in Digital Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The recent archaeological project on Birch Island, Labrador, highlights questions of how digital data are used to gather and convey information to stakeholder communities, in particular, Indigenous groups with limited internet access in some remote locations. This paper questions if representing the...

  • Archaeological and Digital Ethics as a Critical Component of Digital Literacy (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Mary Compton.

    This is an abstract from the "Capacity Building or Community Making? Training and Transitions in Digital Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. While digital literacy typically refers to one’s ability to utilize and navigate various digital platforms, recent literature demonstrates a need to broaden our framing beyond the development of practical skills to include understanding the impact of those technologies in contemporary society. This is...

  • Archaeologists as Early Adopters and Critical Remediators at UC Berkeley’s MACTiA (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Ruth Tringham.

    This is an abstract from the "Capacity Building or Community Making? Training and Transitions in Digital Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In this presentation, I revisit the digital training that was carried out by myself and colleagues at the UC Berkeley Multimedia Authoring Center for Teaching in Anthropology (MACTiA). During the period of its existence (1998-2011) the program transformed itself enormously not only in response to...

  • Best Strategies for Field-based Training in Data Recording and Management (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Anne Austin. Ixchel Faniel. Eric Kansa. Jennifer Jacobs. Ran Boytner.

    This is an abstract from the "Capacity Building or Community Making? Training and Transitions in Digital Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. A student’s first experience with archaeological recording is frequently in a field school setting. Yet, field school data recording practices can quickly evolve as archaeological projects integrate new technology, change excavation strategies, and investigate new research questions. How do these...

  • Building Capacity and Communities of Practice in Digital Heritage and Archaeology (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Ethan Watrall.

    This is an abstract from the "Capacity Building or Community Making? Training and Transitions in Digital Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. As digital methods have become ubiquitous and critical in archaeology and heritage, the challenge of teaching those methods has become more complex. More importantly, we’re being faced with an equally important challenge - how do we build and foster communities in which scholars are connected through...

  • Co-Creating Digital Heritage Resources in Ghana: How Is It Going? (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Ann Stahl.

    This is an abstract from the "Capacity Building or Community Making? Training and Transitions in Digital Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Funded by a Canadian SSHRC-funded partnership development grant, our working group of collaborators is engaged in training and capacity building in digital heritage methods in Ghana. Project aims include fostering a community of practice inclusive of archaeologists, heritage practitioners, students...

  • Data Literacy and Public Engagement in Archaeology (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Eric Kansa. Sarah Whitcher Kansa.

    This is an abstract from the "Capacity Building or Community Making? Training and Transitions in Digital Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper will explore the need to cultivate deeper and broader data literacy in archaeology. Data and algorithms shape the actions of virtually every institution in modern society. In archaeology, data involve significant conceptual, modeling, and ethical challenges (including cross-cultural...

  • DEBS: Using Digital Tools in Community-Led Graveyard Recording (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Julian Richards. Nicole Beale. Gareth Beale. Katie Green.

    This is an abstract from the "Capacity Building or Community Making? Training and Transitions in Digital Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Discovering England’s Burial Spaces (www.debs.ac.uk) is an Historic England-funded project based at the Archaeology Data Service and Digital Creativity Labs in the University of York, UK. We are collaborating with community groups to develop new tools and resources for burial space research, recording...

  • Digital Archaeology Mentorship: Best Practices in a Rapidly Changing Field (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Willeke Wendrich.

    This is an abstract from the "Capacity Building or Community Making? Training and Transitions in Digital Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Digital archaeology comprises everything from obtaining digital data, to data analysis, representation, and preservation. It is a complex field that is in constant flux, due to the ever changing landscape of available commercial, home grown and open access resources. Training and mentorship are of...

  • Digital Communities of Learning: Bridging Technology, Pedagogy, and Community-Engaged Practice (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Katherine Cook.

    This is an abstract from the "Capacity Building or Community Making? Training and Transitions in Digital Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. At the junction of contemporary approaches to digital and community-engaged scholarship, there is an augmented spirit of openness and collaboration that has the potential to reconfigure authority, ownership and power in connecting with the past by transforming digital training and capacity building....

  • Geographic Information Just Wants to Be Free: Capacity-Building in the Ethical and Practical Uses of Free and Open Source GIS Software and Open Geospatial Data Standards within the Digital Index of North American Archaeology (DINAA) (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Joshua J. Wells. Robert Carl DeMuth. Stephen Yerka. Eric Kansa. Sarah Whitcher Kansa.

    This is an abstract from the "Capacity Building or Community Making? Training and Transitions in Digital Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Digital Index of North American Archaeology (DINAA) is the largest compilation of completely free and open information about archaeological site descriptions and serves as an index to an ever-growing network of primary data and publications resulting from investigations at those archaeological...

  • Podcasting and Two-Eyed Seeing: Digital Practice, Community Engagement, and Reconciliation in Archaeological Discourse (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Susan Blair. Neha Gupta. Victoria Clowater. Ramona Nicholas. Katherine Patton.

    This is an abstract from the "Capacity Building or Community Making? Training and Transitions in Digital Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Community or public archaeology has been the focus of professional effort and academic examination for decades. Most of this has a goal of creating public value, and takes the form of ‘outreach’ from a presumed disciplinary core, potentially downplaying conflict within the discipline. It is also a...

  • Recompiling the Archaeology of East Africa: The Swahili GIS Project, and What Comes Next (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Tom Fitton. Stephanie Wynne-Jones.

    This is an abstract from the "Capacity Building or Community Making? Training and Transitions in Digital Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The East African coast is famous for the stonetowns of the 'maritime trading' culture of the Swahili, but the scale of this region, fractured history of research, and scattered publication of work have until recently prevented macro-scale investigations of settlement patterns and coastal interactions....