National Council on Public History

Sarah Scarlett, Michigan Technological university

PROPOSAL TYPE

Roundtable

Seeking

• Seeking Additional Presenters
• Seeking General Feedback and Interest
• Seeking Specific Interest

RELATED TOPICS

• Digital
• Place
• Public Engagement
• Data/Information Management

ABSTRACT

Public historians using online digital or spatial platforms to engage communities with the shared histories of a particular space are encountering new ethical questions and elevated anxiety levels about privacy. Household level historical data connected in space-time with workplaces, schools, streets, and other extant landscape features can reanimate past realities so vividly that community members can feel threatened or even violated, especially when records depict contested events or private property. How can public historians address the ethical questions arising from online place-based memory projects to empower community agency and meaning in inclusive and sensitive ways?

DESCRIPTION

Are you working on a digital or spatial public history project? Are you encountering anxiety within your communities related to privacy, authority, and memory? We seek colleagues working on community-driven digital or spatial projects to join a roundtable to share challenges and strategies for addressing the ethical dilemmas created by combining fine-grained archival data with user-generated knowledge connected with private or public property, buildings, or sites.

We are a team of historians, archivists, and geographers at Michigan Tech University who developed the Keweenaw Time Traveler (www.keweenawhistory.com), an interactive online deep map for Michigan’s “copper country” built with grants from the NEH and CLIR starting in 2015.

We believe that the quality of the record-linked data, and the co-mingling of “official” narrative with user-contributed memories, combined with today’s heightened political divisions, are creating new ethical problems and anxieties among community partners. We have found that even when the records used are in the public domain, bringing them all together with historic maps paints a holistic and vivid picture of the past that can reveal sensitive information about people and places still connected to current community members.

Questions could include but are not limited to:
• How can researchers add context and data to enrich community-driven stories in a way that respects and uplifts personal narratives, rather than collectivizing or appropriating those memories?
• Who owns user-submitted data or personal memories?
• Is the 72-year rule enough? Historical data from the U.S. Census-designated cut-off year will inevitably divulge information about people still alive.
• How should international rules that protect privacy in other countries be honored when data is linked across borders? Or when a project focuses on global migration?
• Users do not always embrace the “shared authority” model of history. Many ask how they know which data is “true”?
• Does sharing very detailed historic fire insurance maps put homeowners at risk?
• What is the best way to characterize the role of physical collections being scanned for digital environments? How do we ensure enhanced public access and also support the broad needs of researchers?
• When should communities retain the right to forget? When should individuals?

We invite colleagues to join us in this proposal. We also seek feedback from the broader membership.

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: Sarah Scarlett, Michigan Technological University, [email protected]

ALL FEEDBACK AND OFFERS OF ASSISTANCE SHOULD BE SUBMITTED BY JULY 1, 2021. If you have general ideas or feedback to share, please feel free to use the comments feature below.

Discussion