What is the future of death in the digital age and what is the role of archaeology in online deathly domains? Mortuary memes evolve fast, and so must our approaches and strategies to digital public archaeology, specifically for the high-profile, often controversial and ethically sensitive subdisciplines of bioarchaeology and mortuary archaeology.
The impact of, and vast potential for, mortuary archaeology and bioarchaeology in contemporary debates and perceptions of mortality is undisputed (see Croucher et al. 2020). Yet, to date this field’s digital dimensions have received only limited sustained evaluation. Drawing on this work and specifically building on a successful 2021 ‘DigiDeath’ digital conference involving guest speakers and student contributions critiquing current approaches to digital public mortuary archaeology (Williams 2021), this session will showcase and promote key debates and new directions in the public archaeology of death via digital media.
The session invites contributions that critique and identify strategies to tackle pertinent topics in digital public mortuary archaeology in the media and social media, from newspaper headlines to TikTok videos, including:
Evaluating ethical debates and challenges of digital media and social media; Tackling controversies and combating misinformaton and disinformation online, including prominent pseudoarchaeological narratives which cross-cut the interfaces between digital, visual and media literacies; Introducing new approaches to digital public communication and education on mortuary topics including evaluations of both failures and successes; Case studies in digital public mortuary archaeology including those by projects and individuals at universities, museums, commercial units and other sectors; Considering pandemic and post-pandemic engagements with mortality and archaeology online; Challenging online abuse, harassment and bullying exploiting mortuary archaeology and bioarchaeology, from racial ideologies to transphobic rhetorics.
2:05pm | Using archaeology to support grief and bereavement: a digital toolkit for counsellors, therapists and patients | Karina Croucher, Eleanor Bryant, and Aoife Sutton-Butler
2:25pm | TikTok Archaeodeath | Howard Williams
3:20pm | Soyjaks, Tradwifes, and a 1000-Year-old Finnish Burial: Exploring the Meme Reaction to Moilanen et al. (2022) | Owen Hurcum
3:35pm | From Tombs to Television: The Problematic Use of Human Remains in 'Ancient Aliens' | Frederick Trusohamn
3:50pm | The dead as clickbait: images of human remains in British online news outlets | Ellie Chambers
4:00pm | Discussion |
Full paper abstracts available here: https://tag2024.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/tag-2024-session-abstracts-1.pdf
