British Academy Conference
From TracingNetworksWiki
Date
October 2013
Organizers
Lin Foxhall, Anthony Harding, Colin Haselgrove, Katharina Rebay-Salisbury
Title
Tracing Networks: the communication of technological knowledge in antiquity and the digital age
Rationale
The analysis of networks is increasingly being recognized as an important tool for understanding social, economic and political relations in past and present communities. Networks of crafts-people and craft traditions across and beyond the Mediterranean region, between the late Bronze Age and the Hellenistic period (1500-200 BCE), serve as primary case studies through which patterns of knowledge transfer, innovation and technological change can be modelled and explored. Networks of knowledge in antiquity can be used as tool for rethinking communication systems in the digital age. New advances in global, ubiquitous computing will be discussed in the context of changing communication of information. The conference proposal arises out of the context of a five-year, interdisciplinary research programme funded by the Leverhulme Trust, in which archaeologists and computer scientists worked together to develop new approaches to understanding knowledge networks in the ancient past, making the past relevant for the digital future.
Panel 1: Transfer of knowledge through human relationships: from Antiquity to the Digital Age
Knowledge moves at many different scales and can be tracked through one-to-one interactions, family and craft-groups, as well as communities and societies as a whole. Inevitably, however, people are involved in transactions through which knowledge moves, be it through personal interaction or providing the social and technological context of record and transmission. For many centuries, texts played a crucial role in the transmission of knowledge, and the curation of texts prioritized the preservation and copying of knowledge over its transformation. Knowledge transfer in the digital age works differently and circumvents hierarchical structures of authoritative knowledge by giving participants in knowledge networks the power to change. This again puts the notion of social connectivity as the most important underlying factor in the foreground, which is shaped by and shapes social relationships between people.
Panel 2: Adaptation, transformation and innovation
Changes in practices involve choice and decision making. This panel asks why some traditions are continued, while other ways of doing things never go beyond the experimental stage before they are dismissed. Innovation might start with an idea, but this is not enough for it to catch on: the right conditions and a network of links with sufficiently strong connectivity need to be in place for inventions to become innovative technologies. Continuous adaptation and improvement might be seen as an alternative, or synonymous to, innovation, but relationships to environments and responses to changing circumstances play key roles.
Panel 3: Material Networks: objects and media as message
The role of objects, including their material properties and materiality is central to this panel. Objects have long been recognized as means of communication beyond words, conveying ideas in a non-verbal way. The transmission of aesthetics and styles, for instance, depends heavily on objects and materials as communicators. Treating objects as integral components in dynamic networks offers insights into their lifecycle, including production and consumption, and allows us to explore non-discursive and embodied knowledge, i.e when our knowledge is so deep-rooted that we no longer know that we know something. Knowledge transfer in the digital age shares many features with antiquity: it still relies on hardware and software working in tandem, while messages conveyed in media such as videos, knowledge bites, and podcasts are no longer tied to text alone.
Panel 4: Dismantling cores and peripheries: networks of knowledge and socio-political transformation
Extensive contacts between different groups across the Mediterranean and beyond are manifested in the regular exchange of ideas, objects, materials and techniques. These contacts cross regional and cultural boundaries as well as different forms of political organisation such as chiefdoms, kingdoms and states. These change radically over the long period and wide geographical area we are investigating. Does well-connected also mean powerful? This panel investigates the role of old networks and new links in the change of socio-political institutions and the role played by local and global factors in these broad cultural developments. These ideas can be applied to present day grassroots movements and other new modes of democratic participation enabled through widespread computational technologies. We will explore how knowledge is transformed through changes in broader socio-political and economic contexts.
Speakers
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