CFProject:what-is-peace? ICT Project -Update

ICTech Inclusion

There is an IT component of this Project and one goal is to create an online repository as a unique Portfolio type function for nonprofit or community organizations that seek membership at Comfusion or Hotel_Infinity. This Historical Initiative will be the one for which these features and technologies are developed but once completed they'll be available for all at no cost for basic features. WebAntiphon Corporation is working with partners Organization:iFOSSF, and collaborating artists to manage the technical planning, development, implementation, technical support and maintenance to ensure free basice services for nonprofits and community groups.

The basic features will be designed to give the global community easy acess to historical and cultural information that would otherwise be lost. The emphasis is on inclusion of the previously excluded or under represented cultures in local and regional museums around the globe.

For example–

the Storyteller painting was inspired by summer evenings at my Grandma Lottie's house on the front porch where she'd read various books to us. My favorite was The Negro Caravan which was full of old stories. My Grandma lived on Cemetery Street where there was an old graveyard hidden in the woods where some of our family are buried. Years later when my Auntie began collecting information on who was buried down there, because many of our ancestors were among them, she discovered that someone at the county office had burned the records. Apparently not seeing the value of retaining such information for one of the oldest, if not the oldest, “colored cemetery” in the county. That is now a wealth of historical information that predated the Civil War, lost…to create a dead end for those seeking to find and connect with their family history. This worsens the situation created by slavery that makes it extremely difficult to trace one's family lineage.

 
My goal is to create a repository that provides an alternative to local preservation institutions that continue to be tainted by the history of discrimination. This repository would be independent and ownership shared by the global community. Best of all it ensures that the valuable information my Auntie (and the others like her) have collected is preserved and easily shared with those seeking such to learn about local histories, including but not limited to oral histories.

There are a very limited number of resources for that region and history must not be revised by excluding important information that played vital role in shaping the community.

Upate: 6/22/07

While visiting the Brattonsville Plantation (York County, S.C.) we learned some interesting facts, that though known by some locals and historians, was not included in written history accounts. One example of how valuable oral histories are in preserving honest histories of the region.

During the tour as we walked out of the woodshop the slaves used my Aunt Yvette shared with us a story handed down by my Grandma Lottie who was told by Caleb Craig, a former neighbor born into slavery who was also the son of the plantation owner. He was a slave in Fairfield County, S.C. and although he is included in the collected slave narratives, the story about to be shared was not included.

 You can read the rest of that here

Blog note:

The slave narratives referenced were part of the writers projects so interviews were not with people the interviewee was familar with and likely to confide in based on previous experiences . Considering the context, it is logical to conclude they were not going to discuss things that would have been viewed as confrontative or unflattering of white society. Information documented in the narratives consist mostly of basic biographical information (age, place of birth, and where they worked) It reveals very little about the reality of their lives on an intimate level.

Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1938 contains more than 2,300 first-person accounts of slavery and 500 black-and-white photographs of former slaves. These narratives were collected in the 1930s as part of the Federal Writers' Project of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and assembled and microfilmed in 1941 as the seventeen-volume Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves.

This project will create a solution to this problem for many others around the world that they can easily plug into and help create a virtual annex for other cultural and historical preservation resources, as well as a cultural portal for the global community. This is an innovative application of ICT to inclusively benefit historically oppressed groups and developing countries using an approach similar to that employed by wikipedia. Consider a future where history welcomes the voices of many to better inform understanding of complex realities.

Who benefits?

The resulting product will benefit many, including Organization:NGO_Art_Studio and other Nonprofit and community organizations like it who are interested in cultural and historical preservation, as well as art/creativity/knowledge/dialogue applied to advance the causes of peace.

In addition to Private Sponsorship we will apply research funding to the creation and maintence of this repository and eLearning portal to cover technical support cost, hosting, etc.

 
Yvette Dubel says:

oh i got an idea w-r-t the historical preservation repository idea for what-is-peace?

i want a wikipedia styled searchable repository that could include media content, especially oral history narrative collections…documentaries, art, and historical day to day items as artifacts

that experts and students from around the globe can study online

and contribute to a “book”of knowledge on those items using a system of peer review like wikipedia to ensure quality of content

and focusing on historical preservation of those people currently excluded or marginally included in institutional collections (museums, universities, etc)