Context

Last updated on 2024-12-17 | Edit this page

Collecting digital data, including 3D data, for the documentation, preservation, study and dissemination of material culture knowledge has been rapidly evolving in the last decades. Such data provide valuable insights about the objects’ biographies and the development of humans within different societal contexts.

Manhattan, NY - November 4, 2022: 11th century Indian Celestial Dancer Apsara sandstone statue on display in the Metropolitan Museum of Art linked to Subhash Kapoor illegal black market smuggling © by John Hanson Pye under Education License from Adobe Stock
Manhattan, NY - November 4, 2022: 11th century Indian Celestial Dancer Apsara sandstone statue on display in the Metropolitan Museum of Art linked to Subhash Kapoor illegal black market smuggling © by John Hanson Pye under Education License from Adobe Stock

With the democratisation of technologies and hence the facilitation of access to equipment, software and sharing of digital data information, digital practices have become established in several domains which aim to investigate human presence and activity, including archaeology, history, ethnography, art and museum studies.

Yet the speed with which technology progresses, the abundance of digital data – often called big data – and the lack of standardisation with regard to digital practices and hence strategies and policies in the digital humanities spectrum, eventfully raise a range of considerations many of which pertain to the realm of ethics. This becomes more prominent, given the possibility to distribute data over the web, customise data and reuse them for various purposes ranging from study to creative activities, as well as physically replicating or reproducing heritage assets through fabrication technologies, such as 3D printing.

As such, ethics become involved in many aspects of the cultural heritage digital data domain. Some of the ethical considerations that might arise when working with cultural heritage data include:

  • Do we have the approval of material knowledge and object holders to digitise assets?

  • What are the most appropriate methods to use for digitisation in the given context of our research?

  • How much data do we need and how will we store it?

  • Where will we store data and who will we ensure their longevity and preservation?

  • Who will have access to our data?

  • What are the secondary uses that we envisage our data will have?

Challenge

Take some time to think about the questions above and how these reflect to your own research project.

Write down some of the main considerations that arise from your project and share with colleagues.