Partnerships in Meaning-Making: Digital Storytelling as Cultural Sustainability Practice

Abstract

This reflective paper summarizes research that explored digital storytelling as a potential method for cultural sustainability practice. The digital storytelling process involves the production in a facilitated workshop setting of short (3-5 minute) personal narratives that include photographs, art or music, and first-person narration. Findings presented in this paper suggest that digital storytelling provides not only a complementary method for engaging community partners, but also offers important insights into issues of power, representation, positionality, and ethical practice. The paper includes recommendations for bringing cultural sustainability principles to digital storytelling practice, as well as models for bringing the digital storytelling approach to the practice of cultural sustainability. The paper concludes by introducing a website concept – the Collaborative Digital Storytelling Hub – as an online resource for connecting digital storytelling practitioners with culture workers and community partners who are interested in exploring digital storytelling applications in their work with communities.