Ghost hunting in the broken archives

Digital education is often presented as breaking from tradition. A failure to account for how digital education emerges from historical institutional activity is problematic as this activity continues to circulate through the present and educational future, appearing and disappearing in often unexpected ways. Using Derrida’s concept of hauntology as a theoretical lens, this presentation traces how a digital education initiative at the University of Edinburgh in 2003 carried through to the creation of a course to train teachers to teach online in 2019, which in turn informed the university’s response to the pandemic in 2020. In this presentation we attempt to demonstrate how digital archives, often precariously constructed and neglected, can haunt the educational trajectory of the future.

Hauntology potentially provides a mechanism for institutions to trace their own histories and to note how these histories, often hidden in broken archives or carried forward into the present by hosts, inform their present and future trajectories. Broken archives, those that have ceased to function as active repositories but are disconnected from institutional domains and ontologies, shut due to absent gatekeepers, or merely forgotten, contribute to the sudden and often unexpected emergence of hauntings in present and future trajectories. This presentation is concerned with re-historicizing the digital by noting the ghosts that circulate through it. Ultimately, the exploration of the ‘predigital’ suggests that archives can teach us about the formation of digital education in the past, but also help us understand the shape of any future trajectory.

Michael Gallagher
University of Edinburgh
United Kingdom

Michael Gallagher is a Senior Lecturer in Digital Education at the University of Edinburgh, and a member of the Centre for Research in Digital Education. His research interests include digital education in HE and in the majority world, and educational mobility. He is the Programme Director of the MSc in Digital Education.

Stuart Nicol
University of Edinburgh
United Kingdom

Stuart Nicol leads the Educational Design and Engagement section in Information Services Group (ISG), responsible for delivering a number of key strategic services to the University, including: advice, consultancy, and training for learning technologies; learning design; support for online course production, including MOOCs; and support for open education resources. Stuart has worked as a learning technologist for over 20 years and joined the University of Edinburgh in 2007, initially in the School of History, Classics, and Archaeology, moving to ISG in 2011. He has a master’s degree in Digital Education from the University of Edinburgh and is currently studying for a professional doctorate in education.

Markus Breines
London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
United Kingdom

Markus Breines trained as a social anthropologist at the University of Sussex. Before joining LSHTM in 2020 to work on the Child Health and Mortality Prevention Surveillance (CHAMPS) project, he worked at the Open University and the University of Edinburgh. He is based in Harar, Ethiopia, where he is the LSHTM social science lead for Hararghe Health Research Partnership.

Potrebno predznanje: None required