Digital Curation and Intersectionality: Diversity in the Dissemination of Architectural Primary Resources

Abstract

Taking as its starting point the increasing importance of the role of digital curators within institutions holding architectural archives, the project aims to elaborate tools coming from intersectional theory and practice in order to produce an understanding of how women and black men are represented in the digital curation of architectural drawings in cultural institutions. More specifically, the project aims to apply concepts and tools coming from the theory of intersectionality in order to examine how aspects concerning gender and race can be taken into account when establishing digital curatorship strategies. The project is based on the hypothesis that visualisation strategies can show the evolution of the role of women and black people in architectural discourse. An important factor for this project is that the aforementioned institutions are situated within
a context having the following characteristics, which are contradictory to a certain extent: on the one hand, they hold in their collections archives of architects that are para digmatic of the dominant discourse given the fact that they wish to acquire the fonds of architects that influenced and are significantly influencing the dominant discourse, but, on the other hand, they are called to shape interpretative models based on perspectives able to take into account diversity issues. Drawing upon Kimberlé Crenshaw’s work, and on the impact of the theory of intersectionality on digital humanities and digital labour studies, the project aims to shape a method of digital curation able to conjointly address issues of race, gender, class, ability, sexuality, or other categories of difference while interpreting the primary sources that are disseminated through online platforms. Particular emphasis is placed on the fact that the intersectional perspective is the endeavour to interrogate its own positionality and the very processes of knowledge production, the project also explores how visualisation strategies can show the evolution of the role of women and black people in architectural discourse.