Networked cultural heritage and socio-digital inequalities: a case study in an African-American community

Abstract

Digital technology facilitates the networking together of cultural heritage information held by multiple institutions and individuals. Yet socio-digital inequalities at the level of local communities shape how this possibility develops in places. This paper presents a case study of one project to network African-American community cultural heritage information in the contexts of collaborative digitization, community informatics, and the widespread use of commercial social networking services. Analysis occurs through the lenses of social capital theory and the eBlack Studies framework. Findings illustrate the critical dialectic between bridging/instrumental and bonding/affective social capital in community digitization: communities need bridging social capital to become aware of collaborative digitization projects and possibilities; they also need to invest bonding social capital into such projects to produce a self-determined collective digital representation. Flows of economic capital inform how these alignments of social capital inform the production of digital cultural heritage.