Creators Not Content - A review of the application within Archaeology of digital methods for community engagement in East Africa.

Creators, not Content is a reflexive feasibility study on applying digital tools and products for archaeological community engagement within East Africa. This study has a specific geographical focus on the communities of Kilwa Kisiwani and Songo Mnara islands and the UNESCO World Heritage site that combines them.

Digital methods can be a double-edged sword providing great opportunities for engagement, collaboration, dissemination, and empowerment but also potentially isolating and reinforcing inequalities when applied (Caraher, 2019; Morgan, 2022).
As a more technically demanding method, digital technologies lend themselves to a top-down approach where the digital tool or product is designed by an academic or organization and then presented to the community and world. Often, they are made with little community consultation, or when the community is involved as content for the product. This starkly contrasts with the principles of community archaeology which have attempted to create bottom-up approaches in archaeology and heritage management over the last 20 years. (Apaydin, 2018)

In this period, we have seen community engagement, representation, and agency put at the centre of current approaches. In more recent years, funding models have also shifted to encourage community empowerment, sustainability, and environmentally conscious directives.
This work takes a pragmatic approach to address the gaps in how archaeologists and heritage practitioners apply digital methods as part of these approaches and identifies how heritage professionals can better collaborate with local communities and their members to engage them in our work in a mutually beneficial way. This is explored within an African context that brings specific opportunities and challenges.
This research project utilized semi-structured interviews alongside desk-based research of previous literature and projects.