National Council on Public History

Zada Law, Middle Tennessee State University, Dept. of Geosciences

Proposal Type

Structured Conversation

Seeking

• Seeking Additional Presenters

Related Topics

• Digital
• Public Engagement
• Reflections on the Field

Abstract

In our practice of public history, we perceive that mapping histories is an engage-able method of highlighting historically underrepresented voices and making these stories visible and relevant to the modern public. However, in a current project that develops a prototype for highlighting the history of African American community formation in Tennessee, we have found ourselves at an ethical intersection of balancing and considering the work of telling underrepresented stories by making them visible on the landscape against safety and security concerns.

Description

Goals: We would like this session to be a conversation about national norms, standards, and best practices for making community histories visible in online spaces. We are seeking advice, experiences, and opinions from additional presenters about how best to solicit public responses, engage with community representatives outside the historian bubble, and how to track and monitor potential outcomes.

As collectors, keepers, and interpreters of cultural heritage, public historians are privileged to have the trust of community members, historical organizations, small museums and libraries, and community members who have donated or loaned objects, shared histories, or historical site locations, or personal knowledge so they can be added to our historical knowledge. While the same moral and ethical concerns apply to digitized versions of these objects, online exposure in digital representations such as exhibits, maps, or searchable databases multiplies these ethical concerns exponentially.

In our practice of public history, we perceive that mapping histories is an engage-able method of highlighting historically underrepresented voices and making these stories visible and relevant to the modern public. However, in a current project that develops a prototype for highlighting the history of African American community formation in Tennessee, we have found ourselves at an ethical intersection of balancing and considering the work of telling underrepresented stories by making them visible on the landscape against safety and security concerns. While our work is supported by community historians who are working with us as partners, we recognize that we are working in a fraught social landscape and recognize and feel a great weight of responsibility for the potential consequences of publicly sharing visualizations of underrepresented geographies.

If you have a direct offer of assistance, sensitive criticism, or wish to pass along someone’s contact information confidentially, please get in contact directly: Zada Law, [email protected]

All feedback and offers of assistance should be submitted by July 1, 2018. If you have general ideas or feedback to share, please feel free to use the comments feature below.

Discussion