The Critical Ethnography and Digital Heritage Initiative (CEDHI) is co-directed by Dr. Jan Marontate in the SFU School of Communication, and Dr. Kate Hennessy at SFU’s School of Interactive Arts and Technology. CEDHI is dedicated to designing innovative methods for safeguarding cultural heritage resources using digital technologies. With dedicated laboratory space with the School of Communication at SFU’s Burnaby campus, the CEDHI will respond to the urgent need for new strategies to document, preserve and control access to cultural heritage resources in art worlds and Indigenous communities. This university-based facility will be unique in Western Canada, with its emphasis on innovations in ethnographic research methodologies that integrate contemporary approaches to sound recording, visual imaging, and 3-D image modeling. Digital information management will remain a key issue in the 21st century. This research will develop protocols and content management systems so community-based groups, private sector entrepreneurs, and public sector organizations can undertake economically sustainable and culturally meaningful initiatives in the digital era.
