Reframing the African past:using museum collections and digital storytelling to increase accessibility for and participation by low-resource audiences

"Reframing the African past: using museum collections and digital storytelling to increase accessibility for and participation by low-resourced audiences" is a project submitted to the AHRC follow on funding opportunity for US and Ireland Digital Humanities Collaboration.

The project seeks to develop new approaches to the ways in which culture and heritage are experienced by global audiences through the development of a multi-partner, interdisciplinary, action research, led by the Universities of Cambridge and Arkansas and situated in the museum space.

The primary goal is to foster digital leadership and skills amongst educators that engage in the teaching and learning of lesser-known histories about the African past through digital technologies. The project focuses on building narratives that promote the innovation, flexibility, and resilience of African peoples and institutions through time using digital tools that can also be created and accessed in places where there is limited digital infrastructure and capabilities: key to the inclusion of African voices.

It creates an international network of researchers interested in digital humanities outreach and education, including from the UK, with the McDonald Institute at the University of Cambridge and Cambridge's Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology; two US partners, the Center for Advanced Spatial Technologies (CAST) from the University of Arkansas and the Field Museum Chicago; and two African partners, the KwaZulu Natal Museum, Republic of South Africa and the Nairobi National Museum in Kenya. The network of researchers is comprised by experts in one or more of areas involved (African archaeology, museology and museum education, digital technologies) but do not, in isolation, possess all the skills needed.

Collaboration will address multiple questions that arise with digital storytelling in museum contexts that cross-cut geopolitical boundaries and colonial histories, and even variances in the foci of collection topics and educational goals. The project will result in digital tools and examples for the exploration of knowledge about pre-colonial Africa that is deployable by museum professionals and teachers located in both the Global North and South.