UNESCO Conference ‘Memory of the World in the Digital Age: Digitization and Preservation’

Wat Pratupa in Lamphun, Thailand. Photo by K. Hennessy, 2010.

On September 26th, 2012, I presented a paper at the UNESCO conference Memory of the World in the Digital Age: Digitization and Preservation. I was privileged to present my paper ‘Digital Heritage and Local Cultural Property Rights Discourse’ alongside very thought provoking academics and policy makers in a session titled ‘Intellectual property infrastructure initiatives for digital heritage’. My paper explored the notion that participatory multimedia documentation––particularly that aimed at the preservation of what UNESCO has called ‘intangible cultural heritage’–creates opportunities for the articulation of local cultural property rights discourse that is essential for the ethical circulation and preservation of intangible heritage documentation. My thanks to the conference organizers and to our session chair, Daphne Zografos Johnsson of the World Intellectual Property Organization.

Here is the conference program. The proceedings of the conference, as well as videos of presentations, will be published online in the coming months.