Building a Model of Sustainable Digital Ecologies for Archiving and Showcasing Grassroots Memory and Symbolic Reparation Initiatives

Abstract

In this paper I discuss the experience of a practice‑research project whose objective was to understand how digital archiving infrastructures could support the work of grassroots memory construction initiatives in post‑conflict societies. Through a collaborative model for knowledge and creative content production with four initiatives in Colombia, the project addresses persistent inequalities in access to digital resources that limit the capacities of these initiatives to communicate widely their work and have greater impact within their communities. The paper discusses a model that draws on activist research methodologies for the development and implementation of creative digital practices integrating digital archiving with digital storytelling, centring the values of access, transparency, and knowledge democratization. The digital ecology proposed, I argue, offers new possibilities for the sustainability of grassroots memory and symbolic reparation initiatives developing in contexts of precarity, while serving also as a platform for public humanities research.