"... - recording devices, data carriers, and the enabling of circulation and appropriation of cultural elements"

Deadline: 18. Januar 2013.

Der Call for Papers für die 11. SIEF-Konferenz (International Society for Ethnology and Folklore) 2013 in Tartu, Estland (30.6.-4.7.2013), ist offen (http://www.siefhome.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=201&Itemid=87).

Kulturwissenschaftliche Technikforscher/innen und am Thema interessierte Wissenschaftler/innen aus benachbarten Disziplinen sind herzlich eingeladen, sich mit einem abstract für das Panel P39 zu bewerben, dass von Mitgliedern des Technik-Kollegs ausgerichtet wird.

Die Papervorschläge können über die Homepage des Kongresses eingereicht werden (www.siefhome.org).


Convenors

Johannes Mueske (University of Zurich)
Thomas Hengartner (University of Zurich)
Ute Holfelder (University of Zurich)


Short Abstract

The panel asks for the predicament of technology - (digital) recording devices enable the flow of "culture" by apparently fixing them at the same time. The panel focuses the interplay of technology, reproducible records, and related implications for both everyday practices and ethnographic research.

Long Abstract

"To photograph is to appropriate the thing photographed" - the quote of Susan Sontag stresses the role of storing devices that enable practices to fix sound, light and sound, and also the written word. Whereas cultural analysis has often critically stressed the conjuncture that reproductive technologies "freeze" and de-contextualize "culture" (e.g., from its traditional, religious or social contexts), our panel wants to give weight to the potential of technology to enable new practices of (re-)appropriation of cultural elements by putting the materials at disposal of various actors in various contexts. Thus, recording technology does not only hinder flows but also enables the free circulation of (ethnographic) knowledge or other ephemeral phenomena. The panel seeks papers that apply an empirical-ethnographic approach; proposals can focus on one of the following subjects, or related topics:

- (Storing) Technologies and media convergence: How have cultural practices concerning the handling of sounds, images, or the like changed with technology and how does media convergence influence these processes?

- Issues of (Re-) Appropriation: How do technologies enable actors to use, re-use, or re-contextualise, in general: appropriate and re-appropriate "contents"? What significance do reproducible data unfold in everyday practices of actors, concerning, e.g., communication, identity politics (cultural heritage/property), the appropriation of places?

- Theoretical and methodological Implications: The history of the ethnographic disciplines is related to large collection efforts which tried to freeze (often: rural) culture. Did/Do these projects lead to the circulation of ethnographic knowledge among society (and if so: how)? Does digitization influence issues of access, or even agendas of ethnographic research itself?