Working in the digital contact zone. The digital sharing portal for Roald Amundsen’s Gjoa Haven collection

• Published in: Nordisk Museologi
• Main Author: Wang, Tone
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: University of Oslo Library 2018
• Subjects: Digital; collaboration; contact zone; museum collections; Inuit; Nunavut; Arctic; Canada; Gjoa Haven; Norway; inuit; Nattilik
• Online Access: https://journals.uio.no/museolog/article/view/6650; https://doi.org/10.5617/nm.6650

In this article a story of digital sharing is told. The focus is on a collectionof traditional Inuit material culture brought together on King William Islandover 22 months in 1903–1905 by Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen. Today,shared interest in and concern for this collection centres the collaboration betweenthe Nattilik Heritage Centre in Gjoa Haven, Arctic Canada, and the Museumof Cultural History in Oslo, Norway. A digital sharing portal launched in 2017sets out to realise the space and framework for crucial collaborative practicesconcerning knowledge sharing and access to the material. The article discusses thisprocess, using Clifford’s perspectives on the contact zone (1997) as an intake todiscuss the construction and practice of this digital sharing site.