INTRODUCTION

In an article titled Oral Tradition and Material Culture: Multiplying Meanings of ‘Words’ and ‘Things’ (1992), anthropologist Julie Cruikshank explored a series of parallel issues of cultural representation in anthropology and museums. In a departure from established disciplinary approaches that had treated the analysis of oral tradition and material culture as separate fields of study, Cruikshank detailed some historical parallels between the collection, interpretation and exhibition of words and things: ‘both were originally treated as objects to be collected; then attention shifted to viewing words and things in context; recently they have been discussed as aspects of cultural performance, just as now they are often referred to as cultural symbols or as cultural property’ (ibid, 5). Yet she also drew attention to the ambiguous boundary between words and things, pointing out that, while words are ephemeral, they become things when transcribed on paper or recorded onto tape, and while diverse audiences can interpret objects in museums in very different ways, words are used to give meaning to objects. Significantly, ‘this blurred distinction underscores the parallel ways in which verbal utterances and material objects are used both to symbolize the past and to stake out positions in discussions about cultural representation, copyright of oral narratives and ownership of cultural property’ (ibid, 6).

In this article I extend consideration of the entangled nature of words and things to a more recent concern in anthropology and museums – that of the creation, preservation and circulation of digital surrogates of tangible and intangible cultural objects – media increasingly being referred to as digital cultural heritage.