Suchergebnisse

This rich ethnography analyses coastal protection as a sociomaterial practice. Coastal protection, Friederike Gesing argues, coproduces natural and cultural orders. In the context of the Aotearoa New Zealand coast, it follows the emergence of a new sociotechnical imaginary: coastal management working »with nature« - and not against it. The analysis of a seawall controversy and of different coastal protection projects shows how »soft« protection slowly takes hold. Dune restoration volunteers, coastal management experts, surfer-scientists, and Maori conservationists engage in different practices of making coastal naturecultures: dune restoration as do-it-yourself erosion control, reconstructing native nature, or soft engineering »in concert with natural processes«.

Working with nature - and not against it - is a global trend in coastal management. This ethnography of coastal protection follows the increasingly popular approach of "soft" protection to the Aotearoa New Zealand coast. It analyses a political controversy over hard and soft protection measures, and introduces a growing community of practice involved in projects of working with nature. Dune restoration volunteers, coastal management experts, surfer-scientists, and Maori conservationists are engaged in projects ranging from do-it-yourself erosion control, to the reconstruction of native nature, and soft engineering "in concert with natural processes". With soft protection, the author argues, we can witness a new sociotechnical imaginary in the making. ; Bielefeld

Museum Object Lessons for the Digital Age explores the nature of digital objects in museums, asking us to question our assumptions about the material, social and political foundations of digital practices. Through four wide-ranging chapters, each focused on a single object – a box, pen, effigy and cloak – this short, accessible book explores the legacies of earlier museum practices of collection, older forms of media (from dioramas to photography), and theories of how knowledge is produced in museums on a wide range of digital projects. Swooping from Ethnographic to Decorative Arts Collections, from the Google Art Project to bespoke digital experiments, Haidy Geismar explores the object lessons contained in digital form and asks what they can tell us about both the past and the future. Drawing on the author's extensive experience working with collections across the world, Geismar argues for an understanding of digital media as material, rather than immaterial, and advocates for a more nuanced, ethnographic and historicised view of museum digitisation projects than those usually adopted in the celebratory accounts of new media in museums. By locating the digital as part of a longer history of material engagements, transformations and processes of translation, this book broadens our understanding of the reality effects that digital technologies create, and of how digital media can be mobilised in different parts of the world to very different effects.