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Open Sourcing the Colonial Archive – A Digital Montage of the History of Fernando Pó and the Bight of Biafra

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 May 2014

Enrique Martino
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Abstract

The archival sources gathered for my PhD research have all been posted to a blog, www.opensourceguinea.org. Among other things, the sources trace the migrants and laborers in and around the plantation island of Fernando Pó, moving through numerous empires and societies in Equatorial Guinea, Nigeria, Cameroon and Gabon for most of the twentieth century. Having sources “speak for themselves” to the “public” and even “amongst themselves” contributes not only to an expansionary information commons, but also to a methodological reorganization and pluralization. When a multiplicity of sources are displayed and interlinked as hypertext, the static conceptual lenses of traditional social and cultural history dissolve.

Résumé

Les sources d’archives collectées dans le cadre de ma thèse de doctorat ont été toutes postées sur un blog, www.opensourceguinea.org. Entre autres, les sources retracent l’histoire des migrants et travailleurs dans et autour de l’ile à plantations de Fernando Po, traversant des nombreux empires et sociétés dans la Guinée équatoriale, le Nigeria, le Cameroun et le Gabon pendant la plupart du XXe siècle. Ayant les sources “parlé pour elles-mêmes” au “public” et aussi “entre elles-mêmes,” celles-ci contribuent non seulement à partager les documents numérisés, mais aussi à une réorganisation et une pluralisation méthodologique. Lorsqu’une multiplicité de sources sont déployées et interconnectées comme hypertexte, les filtres conceptuels statiques de l’histoire culturelle et sociale traditionnelle se dissolvent.

Type
Africa’s Archives in the Age of Web Democracy
Information
History in Africa , Volume 41 , June 2014 , pp. 387 - 415
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 2014 

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