Transcript Introductory Presentation ()

Natalie M. Underberg, Ph.D.; Elayne Zorn, Ph.D.
University of Central Florida
PeruVine/PeruDigital
•Goal to present Peruvian festivals on the Internet
•Multilingual, interactive, and immersive
•Uses ethnographic data from the Instituto de Etnomusicología,
Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú-Lima
•Collaboration between anthropologists and digital media
scholars
•Uses hypertext and digital environments to address how
linguistic communities view and interpret the world
•Developed from shared interests of Drs. Natalie Underberg and
Elayne Zorn in Peruvian culture and digital ethnography
•Iterative consultation process with scholars and members of the
public in U.S. and Peru
•Support from University of Central Florida has made foundation
of project possible
•“Opening up” the conceptual process to make interpretation
process more transparent
Reflexive Anthropology and Hypertext Theory
•Adaptation of materials from one medium to another
•Distinctive features of digital environments
•Reflexive, narrative, and collaborative developments in
anthropology
Participatory Design (PD) (Watkins 2007)
•“Due diligence”: partnership-building trips; research design
and wiki creation; team of scholarly and cultural
consultants
•Prototyping: begun through Directed Research and archive
material duplication to design walkthrough for site
•Evaluation and feedback: iterative process
Digital Heritage and Anthropology
•Silence of the Lands (SOL) (Giaccardi and Palen 2008)
•Technical and social infrastructure
•Reflexivity and decolonization of knowledge
•Using interactivity and immersion to enable multiple
interpretive frames
Public Anthropology in Digital Environments
•Series of linked, navigable festival-related environments
•Central anthropology themes form basis of interpretive
approach
•Developed in consultation with IDE, anthropology scholars, and
community consultants
•Interpreting components of festival by role-playing and
interacting with objects
•Adapting game design techniques to virtual heritage
environments (Champion 2006)
•To facilitate “cultural learning”
•Splash page designed as bus station: go north, south, visit
“ethnographer’s office” or “travel agency”
•Explore through one of three perspectives:
•Ethnographer, participant, or sponsor
The Festivals
•Festival #1: Festival from
Northern Coastal Peru
•Señor de la Agonía (Lord
of Agony) in Piura, Peru
•Navigable festival plaza
environment with
participants
•Attendees of the Lord of
Agony capilla
•Angel with capatáz
•Tamalera
•Serrano
•Sarahuas
•Festival #2: Festival from Southern
Highland Peru
•Virgen de la Candelaria (Virgin of
Candlemas) in Puno, Peru
•Navigable festival plaza environment with
participants
•Festival sponsors with silver-laden car
•Bearers of the Mamita Candelaria
•Diablada dancers
•Sicuris
•Many other dance troupes
Site Design
•Señor de la Agonía festival: Piura
walkthrough
•Serrano stereotype on the North
Coast
•Festival and the carnivalesque
•“going behind the mask”
•Sarahuas
•Ethnographic and performance
perspective
•Culture and tradition change over
time and across space
•Interacting with costume, dance,
and text objects to imitate
performance preparation
•Piura region cultural context:
folklore genres and musical
instruments
•Town of Morropón
•Tondero
•Cajón
•Capilla for the Lord of Agony
•Festival sponsor perspective
•People create, perform, and experience
culture based on social perspectives or
roles
•Complementary gender roles of festival
sponsors
•Communal labor and participation of
community and visitors
•Virgen de Candelaria festival:
Puno walkthrough
•Highland culture
•Sponsor perspective
•Journey of festival sponsor in
silver-plate laden car
•Creation of public cultural events
defines and builds or destabilizes
communities
•User performs imitation of festival
planning tasks
•Female dancers of sicuri (panpipe
ensemble)
•Expressive culture constructs and reveals
social categories
•Complementary duality of genders
expressed in dance and other performances
•Connections to other Andean performances
of masculine verticality and feminine
circularity
•Festival costumes representing multiple
identities
•People take active roles in selfrepresentation
•Zorro: people creatively incorporate
materials from the culture industry into
public expressions
•Southern Andean diablada
•Ethnographic perspective
•History of the diablo dancers and
connection to the image of the
Virgin of Candlemas
•Goal: embed knowledge and scholarly methodology
•Role play participants as well as scholars and spectators
•Enacts aspects of reflexive methodology (Ruby 1980, Pack
2006)
•Evokes experience and privileges subjectivity
•Exploits digital medium’s interactive and imitative nature (Pink
2001)
•Making design and interpretation process transparent as
model for public anthropology in digital age