Attachments to participatory digital infrastructures in the Cultural Heritage sector

Abstract

This paper explores knowledge infrastructures developed with the aim of opening cultural heritage institutions for public access and involvement. We concentrate on the new modes of knowledge production of professionals and amateur experts involved in the design and use of open archives and wiki communities as a part of transformations towards participatory digital public infrastructures. Ideas of crowdsourcing, policies of open data and engagements in community-based cultural heritage influence participants’ visions of future ways of generating, sharing and maintaining their knowledge. The paper identifi es how the concept of attachments may help us analytically to understand the dynamics of multiple situated knowledges that are played out when people embrace digital technologies and open-data policies to connect past, present and future orientation of cultural heritage engagements.