Chiara Bonacchi
Chancellor's Fellow and Senior Lecturer in Heritage at the University of Edinburgh; Former Senior Lecturer at the University of Stirling, and Research co-Investigator at the UCL Institute of Archaeology | Digital Heritage, Museums, Medieval Archaeology
less
InterestsView All (7)
Uploads
Books
Chiara Bonacchi draws on the results of an extensive programme of research involving both data-intensive and qualitative methods to investigate how pre-modern periods are leveraged to support or oppose populist nationalist arguments as part of social media discussions concerning Brexit, the Italian Election of 2018 and the US-Mexican border debate in the US. Analysing millions of tweets and Facebook posts, comments and replies, this book is the first to use big data to answer questions about public engagement with the past and identity politics. The findings and conclusions revise and reframe the meaning of populist nationalism today and help to build a shared basis for the democratic engagement of citizens in public life in the future. The book offers a fascinating and unmissable read for anyone interested in how the past and its contemporary legacy, or ‘heritage’, influence our ‘political’ thinking and feeling in a time of hyper-interconnectivity.
Papers
production, availability and usage of Big Data, laying out a research
agenda for digital heritage at the time of the ‘data turn’. Over the past
fifteen years, a proliferation of heritage data has been generated by
‘ecosystems of distributed practices’ enacted by the co-working of
bodies, cultural identities, organisational workflows, software, application
programming interfaces, etc. (Ruppert 2018, 19–20). The authors of
research articles and commentaries in this collection explore the three
macro-dimensions along which we can map transformations of and by
heritage in Big Data ecologies: 1) ontologies, or heritage as datified
resources; 2) interactions; and 3) methodologies and epistemologies.
Chiara Bonacchi draws on the results of an extensive programme of research involving both data-intensive and qualitative methods to investigate how pre-modern periods are leveraged to support or oppose populist nationalist arguments as part of social media discussions concerning Brexit, the Italian Election of 2018 and the US-Mexican border debate in the US. Analysing millions of tweets and Facebook posts, comments and replies, this book is the first to use big data to answer questions about public engagement with the past and identity politics. The findings and conclusions revise and reframe the meaning of populist nationalism today and help to build a shared basis for the democratic engagement of citizens in public life in the future. The book offers a fascinating and unmissable read for anyone interested in how the past and its contemporary legacy, or ‘heritage’, influence our ‘political’ thinking and feeling in a time of hyper-interconnectivity.
production, availability and usage of Big Data, laying out a research
agenda for digital heritage at the time of the ‘data turn’. Over the past
fifteen years, a proliferation of heritage data has been generated by
‘ecosystems of distributed practices’ enacted by the co-working of
bodies, cultural identities, organisational workflows, software, application
programming interfaces, etc. (Ruppert 2018, 19–20). The authors of
research articles and commentaries in this collection explore the three
macro-dimensions along which we can map transformations of and by
heritage in Big Data ecologies: 1) ontologies, or heritage as datified
resources; 2) interactions; and 3) methodologies and epistemologies.
MicroPasts is a collaboration between the UCL Institute of Archaeology and the British Museum, funded by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council (2013-2015). The project has leveraged web-based technologies to foster collaborations between researchers based in higher education and heritage institutions and members of the public to study the human past. Together, we have been creating new open archaeological data via crowdsourcing (crowdsourced.micropasts.org), discussing their value and micro-financing community archaeology and community history projects (crowdfunded.micropasts.org).
Speakers will include the MicroPasts team*, Stuart Dunn (King's College London), Meghan Ferriter (Smithsonian Institution Transcription Centre), Daniel Lombraña González (Crowdcrafting and Pybossa), Helen Miles (Aberystwyth University), Andrew Wilson and Katharina Moeller (Bangor University).
*Andrew Bevan, Chiara Bonacchi and Adi Keinan-Schoonbaert (UCL Institute of Archaeology); Daniel Pett, Jennifer Wexler and Neil Wilkin (British Museum); Hugh Fiske and Lisa Cardy (MicroPasts collaborators).
Submissions here http://eaaglasgow2015.com/call-for-papers/
This major project, which will run from July 2016 to the end of September 2019. The funding is provided by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the project involves research teams in Durham University and University College London. We are proposing to conduct research and to exchange knowledge with stakeholders in order to understand how ideas and materials derived from the Iron Age and Roman past (c. 700 BC to AD 400) are drawn upon today in England, Scotland and Wales.
Powerful ideas about European cultural origin stemming from the writings of classical authors who drew a distinction between 'civilization' and 'barbarism' have been used to contrast native peoples with Roman invaders. In Britain concepts of civilization and barbarism have influenced how people understand the extent and character of the territories that make up the UK, the origins of their inhabitants and how they relate to people from overseas. The Iron Age and Roman periods are highly popular in present-day Britain as demonstrated, for example, by the frequency and interest with which important archaeological discoveries are communicated via newspapers, magazines, television, films (e.g. 'Centurion' and 'The Eagle') and novels. Community projects focusing on the Iron Age are addressing themes such as housing and sustainable ways of living, while the Roman past offers opportunities for considering military identity, concepts of civilisation and multicultural origins (see the visual evidence). Ancient monuments dating to these periods and the museums that display them are popular visitor attractions. Re-enacting, metal-detecting and taking part in archaeological projects are generating new and relevant forms of knowledge.
Academic research on the Iron Age and Roman past in the UK is widely recognised across Europe and America for its excellence, but, until now, the exploration of meaning in the past has often been distanced from the interests and concerns of the broader public (Hingley 2015). This project offers the new perspective of studying the living meaning of Iron Age and Roman materials and ideas by examining the creative and variable ways in which stakeholders incorporate the past into their researches, performances and actions. We will also unpick the values of heritage that are specific to the Iron Age and Roman pasts from those that are not. Our methodologies will allow access to significant new bodies of information both online and offline.
We will seek to communicate our findings in order to challenge the divisions that currently separate the interests of stakeholders, including (but not limited to) academic archaeologists, heritage managers, re-enactors, visitors to ancient monuments and teachers. We intend to promote our work by developing existing contacts with researchers and practitioners in archaeology, heritage and museums nationally and internationally. Drawing upon the project team's connections, we will exchange knowledge of our results through digital means, conferences, and publications.
2. Objectives
We aim to develop and communicate a coherent and transformative understanding of the complex and contrasting ways that the Iron Age and Roman pasts are drawn upon by stakeholders today across England, Wales and Scotland, and to set this in an international context. Much of the attention of archaeologists to date has focused on criticizing imperial and nationalistic uses of concepts of Romanization and Celtic identity (cf. Mattingly 2011; Morse 2005). This project will adopt a more open approach to address the wide variety of manifestations of Iron Age and Roman Heritage (IA&RH), documenting both how materials and ideas from the past are received, interpreted, performed and cited and also the role of 'expert practice' (Jones and Yarrow 2013, 7).
This session invites papers that examine processes of appropriation of the past to generate, express or oppose populist nationalist ideologies. It will highlight the underlying dynamics through which archaeological knowledge enters political discourse, and will particularly reflect on the kinds of past that are drawn upon, and the myths they are moulded into. It is hoped that, by developing a better understanding of how the past, interpreted through archaeological approaches, is utilised politically, we can reflect on how archaeologists contribute or respond to situations where the past is weaponized. The session aims to encourage comparative and interdisciplinary discussion, drawing on case studies that focus on different periods and a range of geographical contexts. Papers concentrating on tangible and intangible heritage, and those addressing how representations of archaeology in pop-culture may contribute to the development of specific political discourses are particularly encouraged.
Coakley, J. (2004) Mobilizing the past: nationalist images of history. Nationalism and Ethnic Politics 10(4), 531-560.
Please submit abstracts (250 words max) to Barbora Žiačková ([email protected]), Chiara Bonacchi ([email protected]), and Ole F. Nordland ([email protected]) by 2 September 2019
amount of available ‘’Open Science’’, in terms of digitized and born-digital data concerning
human history and prehistory with all their contemporary legacies. This has been due to a
combination of numerous research and cultural resource management initiatives, for
example, fieldwork expeditions, grey literature, digitization of museum, archive, and library
collections, co-production of data through crowdsourcing, and the creation of open
repositories of remote sensed data. Archaeology and heritage are often at odds with wellestablished
practices of data sharing in data-rich disciplines such as astronomy, physics,
and medicine for the following reasons: 1) there is a variable level of consensus over use
and curation of data and related analytical methods in both archaeology and heritage; 2) it
is not clear what the norms and requirements of “ethical open science” are; 3) the
communication among different interested parties regarding the requirements and
expectations of open data is limited.
To address these issues, our session brings together researchers interested in the practices
of ethical open science and data sharing in both archaeology and heritage. The session will
explore the different practices used in these fields so far, whilst comparing them to those
used in other research areas and disciplines. We hope to foster practical cross-pollination
and useful discussion between archaeology and heritage researchers. Our goal is to open a
forum that will lead to implementation and standardization of the best open science ethical
practices. We aim to bring tangible benefits for all stakeholders in open science data,
citizens, communities, individual researchers, and researchers, with special attention paid
to the requirements of indigenous stakeholder communities.
We invite papers that present new open science research, and also how this research
relates to the notion of ethical open science.