Bradford convergence

Short summary

In the final year of the project we were seeking to focus our attention on enacting the national collection social machine in Bradford. We were looking to pay particular attention to the infrastructural set up of the social machine - how the technical set up and social relationships enable researchers, institutions and interested parties to make connections between collections and undertake new inquiries. This was trialled by organising 6 workshops with partners in Bradford. Most were organised in conjunction with one of the other investigations.

Research questions

Each of the Bradford Convergence workshops considered the research questions the project set around the social machine approach. We were interested what could be learned about them by bringing the Bradford social machine in contact with the CE social machine.

What are the technical and social requirements for a social machine? What motivates participants in a social machine? What model of governance is useful for a social machine? What needs to be local, what central? Who holds centrally managed aspects? How do we negotiate diverse models of knowledge, expertise and linking? How do we not replicate oppressive structures, but set up models of reciprocal care? Data sources

People

Alex Fitzpatrick

Conceptualization, Methodology, Project administration, Resources

Julia Ankenbrand

Conceptualization, Methodology, Project administration, Resources

Arran Rees

Conceptualisation, Methodology

Katerina Webb-Bourne

Project Administration

Natasha Kitcher

Methodology, Investigation, Data Curation

Max Long

Methodology, Investigation, Data Curation

Daniel Belteki

Methodology, Investigation, Data Curation

Additional Resources Contributed By:

Rosie Freeman

Tim Smith

Friends of Bradford’s Becks

Saltaire Collection

Aire Rivers Trust

Leeds City Council

Bradford Movie Makers

West Yorkshire Queer Stories

509 Arts: Lost Mills and Ghost Mansions

Bradford Sound Systems: Rites of Passage

Investigation methods/ tools/ code/ software

Collaborative workshops, including presentations, discussions and playing with mapping tools.

Workshops

Geolocating Photographs Workshop - 15 May 2024

A small gathering of Bradford locals and historians, local curators, heritage professionals, and project researchers working together to pin images from the Bradford Industrial Museum collections to specific locations on a digital map of Bradford.

The goal is to create a large map of a range of different historic data types, showcasing the rich history of Bradford, and this event will enable images to be integrated into the final product. Once created, the map of newly geo-located photographs will add knowledge to the Bradford Industrial Museum collection.

Key Learnings

• People may already have motivations for more engaged heritage work and just need support in acting on those motivations
• Understandings of data differs from person to person (e.g., the creator of the data versus the person working with it)
  • What are the dynamics at play from the perspective of a creative person whose work is undergoing technical processes by other people?
  • How do we negotiate ownership and interpretation of materials while working with the person who created/generated said materials?
  • How does the minimum amount of metadata needed for working with something like Felt compare to what a photographer/person who created something feels is necessary for metadata?
• Some participants felt confused or uncertain about what they were expected to do as part of the workshop.
  • Is this confusion compounded by the fact that this is a group of varying motivations for participants, but are all intended to participate in one particular output?
  • Identification of tensions within designing a workshop for crowdsourcing:
    • Why are we collecting information?
    • Are we collecting for the sake of collecting?
• The workshop activity was useful as a conversation starter and memory jogger for some participants.
  • Photographs are a powerful motivator for sharing knowledge and experiences.
  • We shouldn’t discount connecting to memory and being given the space to do so as a powerful motivator for people!
• Identification of different forms of knowledge and approaches to engaging with it.
  • Some examples (“layers of knowledge”) as identified by one participant:
    • Historian Knowledge
    • Local Knowledge
    • Personal Knowledge
  • “Bradford is where the knowledge is.”

Geolocating Millponds & Waterways Workshop - 16 May 2024

Several partners interested in environmental history and mapping are coming together to start an interactive map to show old mills, sites of pollution, and the culverted becks, etc. Partners include Friends of Bradford’s Becks, Bradford City Council, and 509 Arts’ Lost Mills and Ghost Mansions project.

Key Learnings

• Participants feel more comfortable when they are able to identify areas in which workshop activities relate closely with their own professional work.
• Data can be inaccessible which can be a barrier to research and collaboration
  • Data held by privatized interests and bodies.
  • Tensions working across grassroots and institutional bodies
• Assumptions of participant abilities, revealing some tensions between the learner/expert dynamic at play.
  • Where does this leave the agency of the participant?
  • Are we sharing/supporting knowledge on our own terms, or giving it to others to use as they wish?
  • Are we giving them space to work out their own connections and interests with these tools?

Connecting Oral Histories Workshop - 17 May 2024

This workshop brings together project researchers and Bradford partners connected to several local oral history collections/projects. In preparation for the event, the project team are running some of the digital tools and processes they have developed on the oral histories that partners are bringing. In the workshop we will give the results a good look.

Inspired by these case studies and a bit of tinkering with digital tools like Memory Mapper, we will discuss what we think in terms of potential, ethics, and practicalities of these technologies for usefully linking oral histories.

Key Learnings

• People seem interested in new methods of working with oral histories, even if the methods are quite technical.
  • Can people already have motivations/interests in technical methods without having full understanding of the technical elements?
  • Are people more interested in the outputs rather than the processes themselves?
• Participants were very engaged in discussion throughout - reflective perhaps of the motivations and interest in reflecting on how the presented work connects to their own oral history projects.
  • Some topics of particular note: ethics of oral histories, accessibility concerns, language (dialects, accents)
  • More vocal skepticism/uncertainty about technical processes
  • Some confusion during activities/icebreaker prompts - people seem more motivated by their personal interests and are more keen to discuss their experiences and goals for oral history work with others
• Participants identifying and acknowledging other oral history projects and archives - reflective of the shared knowledge held across these sectors in Bradford
  • How do we negotiate potential conflict due to our own positionality as an external institution coming into a relatively tight-knit scene?
  • Fears/concerns of extraction and exploitation of local work versus a more ethical and responsible form of knowledge sharing?

Bradford Becks Celebration Event - 25 May 2024

This is a public event organised in collaboration with Friends of Bradford’s Becks. There will be talks about the past and present of the Becks, a guided walk, and games.

Please note that due to the nature of the event, we made the decision to only capture general notes.

Once Upon a Sheep Screening - 25 May 2024

Key Learnings

• Audience was very engaged in the screening, something that was noticeable from the start and grew over time
• Very little prompting needed during discussion groups - participants were keen to discuss the film as well as their own interests/experiences/connections with Bradford mills
  • Interesting to see the shift in acknowledgement of expertise - rather than asking CE members questions, participants are asking questions among themselves
    • Local knowledge seen as expertise and being centered

Wiki-thon Saltaire Collection - 9 September 2024

In collaboration with the Saltaire Collection, a small wiki-thon was held at Shipley College with volunteers, staff, and Congruence Engine project members. During the event, training on how to edit Wikipedia was given by Wikimedian Andy Mabbett.

In the second half of the event, participants were given the opportunity to edit pages of interest with support from Andy. Participants worked in groups of two to edit pages related to their research with the Saltaire Collection.

Edited Wikipedia Pages from Wiki-thon

Titus Salt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titus_Salt James Roberts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_James_Roberts,_1st_Baronet Victoria Hall https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria_Hall,_Saltaire

Data sources

Connecting environmental data: Bradford, textiles, and river pollution

Licence

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License - CC BY 4.0.