Events Schedule

Digitising the Dead - Understanding 'Data Hauntings' to Support Equitable Data Work with Human Remains

Luigina Ciolfi, Professor of Human Computer Interaction, School of Applied Psychology, University College Cork

Valeria Borsotti, Postdoctoral Researcher, Department of Public Health, University of Copenhagen

Stored in museums and university collections worldwide, human remains are subjected to ethical regulations governing their collection, handling and display. Yet, institutional guidelines for their digitization are often vague or absent. This study explores the challenges and opportunities of digitizing historical human remains through the lens of hauntology. We conducted interviews with 23 professionals across 14 museums and collections, as well as one software company specializing in museum collection management systems. From this data, we map: 1) a taxonomy of data work with human remains; 2) the uncertainties implied in this work; 3) the tactics and strategies actively employed by professionals to address them. We argue that tensions between past scientific practices, contemporary ethical frameworks and the frictions and potentials of digital systems come through the materialities of digital archives in what we conceptualize as data hauntings. We conclude by discussing opportunities to support equitable data work with human remains.

Newspapers, death and daily life in early twentieth-century Ireland

Ciara Breathnach, Professor of Irish Gender History, School of History, University College Cork

Historians of death rely heavily on archival materials to understand how past societies lived with high rates of infant and child mortality, and indeed reduced life expectancy. To deepen understandings of cause of death documented in civil registration registers my work has explored the records of the City of Dublin coroner’s court. Rich in socio-economic and cultural details these records not only outline the circumstances leading to sudden or suspicious deaths, they reveal much about life at a time when Dublin City’s housing stock was overcrowded and most of the resident population were mired in varying levels of poverty. For a 2022 monograph I used the frameworks of gender, power and blame to categorise and analyse over 600 original inquest files surrounding the 1901 census. Such was the level of record destruction in 1922 that I could not conduct the same exercise for 1911. In this seminar I will discuss a follow-up case study that focuses on the function of newspapers in bringing coroner’s court proceedings into the public domain. I question if court reporting can be used as a surrogate record and what newspapers can tell us about how well people lived with death in the past.