Multivocality
Definition¶
“An approach to archaeology, but also for historical reasoning, explanation and understanding that accepts a high degree of relativism and thus encourages the contemporaneous articulation of numerous different narratives or parallel discourses.”
Alterative concepts: plurivocality; polyvocality
Definition source: Oxford Reference (n.d.). multivocality. Retrieved 30 Jan. 2025.
Stakes¶
part of: discrimination, opacity
related to: collaboration
If multivocality is neither considered, nor represented in the publication of research (documentation), it gives an unfair representation of the past and/or present, as there are always parallel discourses present.
Where does it occur in the lifecycle?¶
2 - Collection
- Select and curate sources and/or data
- Create metadata for the data
- Create usable categories and variables for your dataset
3 - Process
Questions to consider throughout your work¶
- Does your data allow for the inclusion of multiple perspectives?
- What sources are you not collecting from - and would they provide different perspectives?
- Does your metadata fairly describe different perspectives that exist?
- Does the metadata of your source (data) do so?
- Do your categories represent complex data adequately?
- Does your annotation represent diversity adequately?
Examples¶
- Contested History Project: https://contestedhistories.org/
- The Digital Grainger Project: https://digital-grainger.github.io/grainger/
- Colonial Collections Datahub: https://app.colonialcollections.nl/en
- One More Voice: https://onemorevoice.org/index.html
- Face/Surface. Metamorphosis of colonial perspective: https://kadoc.kuleuven.be/3_onderzoek/33_onzeonderzoeksoutput/tentoonstellingen/2024/tt_2024_bias
- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, The danger of a single story: https://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_ngozi_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story
- Bias(ed) Maps: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.16943470
- Sounds Familiar: https://www.beeldengeluid.nl/onderzoek/projecten/sounds-familiar
Good-better-best practices¶
| Good | Better | Best |
|---|---|---|
| Be aware of different perspectives and voices around your research topic. Discuss this regularly internally with your team. | Include different voices into your metadata and annotations. See: Collaboration. | Consider all the stages in which you can integrate multivocality, starting with the conceptualization of the research project. |
| Explain transparently in documentation (the lack of) multivocality in research, and steps future research may take. | Work with user groups and seek out user feedback after the publication of the dataset and incorporate feedback into newer versions of the dataset. | |
| Be aware of activists, projects, organizations and institutions that work with affected communities and can help make your research multivocal. Involve them in the ownership of the project, in name, funding, and/or decentralising knowledge creation and storage. |
Resources¶
- Jeurgens, Charles, and Michael Karabinos. “Paradoxes of Curating Colonial Memory.” Archival Science 20, no. 3 (2020): 199–220. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10502-020-09334-z.
- Sitzia, Emilie. “Multiple Narratives and Polyvocality as Strategies of Inclusive Public Participation: Challenges and Disruption in the History Museum.” Muséologies. Les Cahiers d’études Supérieures 10, no. 2 (2023): 51–63. https://doi.org/10.7202/1108037ar.