Zoekresultaten

The Future of Local Memory Websites as Empowering Niches in Amsterdam

In this article, we explain how we envision the further interconnection of existing initiatives of online local memory collecting into a new social infrastructure, that is beneficial to the whole of Amsterdam. Three examples of local memory websites show how large districts in the East, South and West are represented thoroughly by local residents, in spite of differences in organizational characteristics. The concept of empowerment, as a multilevel construct, lends itself to frame these examples as important building blocks of socially sustainable districts and neighborhoods. Local knowledge, experiences and people become connected across Amsterdam when local memory websites become interconnected, by introducing city-wide compelling themes. Discussing this social infrastructure in relation to the concept of smart cities, leads us to a plea for more research focus on sociably smart cities. 

Collective digital citizenship trough local memory websites

Moments to remember

The pervasive use of media at current-day festivals thoroughly impacts how these live events are experienced, anticipated, and remembered. This empirical study examined event-goers’ live media practices – taking photos, making videos, and in-the-moment sharing of content on social media platforms – at three large cultural events in the Netherlands. Taking a practice approach (Ahva 2017; Couldry 2004), the author studied online and offline event environments through extensive ethnographic fieldwork: online and offline observations, and interviews with 379 eventgoers. Analysis of this research material shows that through their live media practices eventgoers are continuously involved in mediated memory work (Lohmeier and Pentzold 2014; Van Dijck 2007), a form of live storytelling thatrevolves around how they want to remember the event. The article focuses on the impact of mediated memory work on the live experience in the present. It distinguishes two types of mediatised experience of live events: live as future memory and the experiential live. The author argues that memory is increasingly incorporated into the live experience in the present, so much so that, for many eventgoers, mediated memory-making is crucial to having a full live event experience. The article shows how empirical research in media studies can shed new light on key questions within memory studies.

New directions in research on local memory websites

Recente studies gebruiken een sterk variërende terminologie voor het benoemen van de opbrengsten van interventies met buurtverhalenwebsites. Onze literatuurstudie ordent deze terminologie tot drie meer eenduidige analyseniveaus, die naadloos aansluiten op het empowerment model: concepten op microniveau voor individuele opbrengsten, op mesoniveau voor groepsvoordelen en op macroniveau voor versterking van de gemeenschap. Op het macroniveau onderscheiden we drie concepten: collectief geheugen, cultureel burgerschap en gemeenschapskracht. Met betrekking tot alle niveaus zijn de beweringen in de huidige literatuur voornamelijk gebaseerd op offline data en bevatten zelden een analyse van online participatie. Deze eenzijdigheid wordt veroorzaakt door de focus op institutionele interventies, die vaak onbedoeld online participatie verhinderen. Desondanks, presenteert de literatuur het open en online karakter van buurtverhalenwebsites als de drijvende kracht voor empowerment, in het bijzonder op het meso- en macroniveau. Om de bestaande kennis op het gebied van buurtverhalenwebsites uit te breiden stellen we onderzoek voor dat de daadwerkelijke samenstelling van dit veld in kaart brengt en meer autonome initiatieven bestudeert.

Capturing Urban Memory with Sentient Data, Counter Mapping and Digital Methods

This paper puts forward a conceptual proposition that ties the discourses on ‘urban memory’ (Stillman and Johanson, 2009; Ringas, Christopoulou, Stefanidakis., 2011; Loughran, Fine & Hunter, 2015), sensory ethnography (Pink 2017 ), and counter-mapping (Crampton and Krygier 2018; ) with digital methods (Rogers, Sánchez-Querubín, and Kil, 2015). As an ‘interventionist’ approach, we understand co-producing counter (dynamic) maps with local stakeholders (actors), coupled with sensory and sentient data as a way of capturing the memory of urban peripheral landscapes (through intervention and participation) and thus creating archival knowledge.Urban memory is often understood as a form of collective memory that isconstituted by individual experiences within the place itself and through its historyand social environment (Ringas et al., 2011). With rapid changes in digitaltechnologies, digital and material have become “inseparate and entangled inenvironments people move and navigate their lives through'' (Pink and Fors, 2017).Memories are “evoked with material engagement with devices” which “opens up afield of sensory and affective engagement” research (ibid). While Pink and Forspropose to follow such engagement in a mundane and everyday setting, seen as anon-representational, phenomenological approach, we put forward a mixedmethods approach that connects sensory and sentient data (as agents) with the largerenvironmental context.Urban areas are often conceptualized as sites of ‘creative destruction’, in between stability and change, space (that can be developed) and place (that is lived in), often subjected to planning, regulation, and economic forces (Batty, 2007). This is especially true for urban areas that are located outside of the ‘center’ or in the cities’ periphery. These areas have experienced an endless cycle of deconstruction and reconstruction often witnessed and captured by local inhabitants, creatives, and activists. Currently, many of the peripheral areas are emancipating, bringing forward and openly communicating their complexities, values, and engaging various stakeholders in their regeneration efforts (which happens in a broader context of many European cities repositioning themselves in more polycentric and polyphonic ways, (Scott, 2015).To be able to capture the memory of ever-changing, ‘built a new’ urban places, we put forward counter (dynamic) mapping using digital methods as complemented with sensory and sentient data generated through interactions with digital technologies. Building on Crampton’s notion of maps (Crampton and Krygier, 2018), cartography is understood as existence (becoming) rather than essence (fixed ontology). Maps are therefore taken not as ‘objects’, but as performative practices. Digital methods, on the other hand, enable us to understand dynamic place-making, through ‘tracing’ the stakeholders (actors) and their relations overtime to capture the ways the urban environment gets performed.To clarify with an example, in Spinoza Imaginaries Lab & Cafe situated inAmsterdam Southeast we have been capturing the ever changing urbanenvironment in partnership with local stakeholders (actors), mapping their evolvingrelationships (and grouping) using the IssueCrawler and sentient data co-gatheredby researchers and students, with the clear understanding that to be able to capturea place, it is important to map the vernacular knowledge of that place (imaginaries,including art, movies, unrealized plans and initiatives, etc.). We propose this mixedmethods approach as an epistemological practice geared towards archiving thedynamic state of urban peripheral landscapes.

Multilevel participation within on-line collections of local memories as a practice of cultural citizenship

Collecting local memories on-line is a growing practice with participatory elements on different levels. Three levels of participation – micro, meso and macro – are introduced by describing an exemplary case: the Memory of East in Amsterdam. These levels of this particular case can be grounded in the statements of the Convention on the Value of Cultural Heritage for Society. This indicates that the Memory of East case might be a good practice. However, looking at 53 other cases shows that the three levels are present, but designed differently with respect to the degree in which residents participate. Since the convention is not specific enough we choose the notion of cultural citizenship to assess the value of cases like these. We claim that the cases that have more focus on ordinary residents participating on all three levels assures a sustainable and self-feeding system, which is the best answer to the goals of the convention.