Call for papers: TOWARDS DIGITAL FOLKLORISTICS. Research perspectives. Archival praxis. Ethical challenges.

CALL FOR PAPERS

Interim conference of the SIEF Working Group on Archives

TOWARDS DIGITAL FOLKLORISTICS

Research perspectives. Archival praxis. Ethical challenges.

September 14-16, 2016
Riga, Latvia

In cooperation with the SIEF Working group on Archives and the Network of Nordic-Baltic Tradition Archives, the Archives of Latvian Folklore invites proposals for papers and digital demonstrations for a conference devoted to the rapidly evolving field of digital folkloristics. 
Invited speakers of the conference include: Trevor J. Blank (Potsdam, USA),Lauri Harvilahti (Helsinki, Finland), Christoph Schmitt (Rostock, Germany).
During the last few decades, the use of information technology has become an inherent aspect of everyday life; the discipline of folkloristics faces an interdisciplinary “digital turn” and the extension of the folkloristic “field” into the realm of virtual reality. In folklore archives and other cultural heritage institutions, the engagement with IT has evolved far beyond the simple creation of digital copies and cataloguing. The expansion of digitally mediated environments, tools and methods for folklore collecting, processing and research as well as for communicating with the “folk” promises to change the archival world by becoming a sustainable axis for folklore research.
The presence of information technology has been persistent enough in the daily agendas of tradition archives and folkloristic research to launch a reflexive discussion about the disciplinary outcomes, challenges and perspectives of “the digital age”.
The conference welcomes proposals on papers that relate to the theory and practice of digital folkloristics and that suggest digital demonstrations. It intends to address a range of critically important issues clustered around three thematic dimensions:  

• research perspectives: methods, thematic possibilities of digital folkloristics, social media and the internet as a folkloristic “field”, virtual communities and communicative practices, etc.

• archival practice: digital life of intangible cultural heritage; pioneers of digitising; accessibility of tradition archives; the challenges of digitally-born data; online folklore collecting and representation; the creation of digital environments and digital folklore archives; public participation and the phenomena of crowdsourcing, etc.

• ethical challenges: ethical codes in use; openness of archives vs. archival ethics; national and international regulations and restrictions, etc.

Please submit your proposals by March 15, 2016 to Sanita Reinsone (sanita.reinsone@lulfmi.lv). Submissions should include the name and affiliation of the participant(s), the title and abstract of the presentation (up to 200 words) and the type of presentation (paper or demonstration). Acceptance notifications will be sent shortly after April 15. Do not hesitate to contact us with questions!
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For further information, please visit the conference website: http://lfk.lv/conference