Temporalities and Values in an Epistemic Culture: Citizen Humanities, Local Knowledge, and AI-supported Transcription of Archives

Dick Kasperowski; Karl-Magnus Johansson; Olof Karsvall

doi:10.37683/asa.v51.10937

Dick Kasperowski Department of Philosophy, Linguistics and Theory of Science, University of Gothenburg, Sweden https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4539-2055
Karl-Magnus Johansson The Swedish National Archives, Stockholm, Sweden https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4734-5060
Olof Karsvall The Swedish National Archives, Stockholm, Sweden https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4350-7533

DOI: https://doi.org/10.37683/asa.v51.10937

Keywords: Citizen humanities, archives, artificial intelligence, handwritten text recognition, epistemic culture

Abstract

An enormous amount of handwritten documents in archives can only be accessed by experts trained in reading older handwriting. Through artificial intelligence (AI)-supported technology, they can now be transcribed and made available for wider audiences. To produce transcriptions an AI needs training and a feasible way is to invite citizens to fulfil such tasks. To understand how an epistemic culture develops in such work, this study conducted interviews with participants on how they associate value, meaning and recognise themselves as active epistemic subjects in relation to the project. Despite that the formation of an epistemic culture are beyond the influence and control of project owners, findings show a strong relation between participants’ knowledge of local history, and personal and emotional ties to archival content, for achieving high quality in AI-transcriptions.

Author Biographies

Dick Kasperowski, Department of Philosophy, Linguistics and Theory of Science, University of Gothenburg, Sweden

Dick Kasperowski is Professor of Theory of Science at the University of Gothenburg. His interests include citizen science, governance of science, participatory practices in science and the humanities and open collaborative projects in scientific work. The analytical focus of his research concerns how new technologies configure relations and the development of epistemic cultures between actors claiming different experiences and knowledge.

Karl-Magnus Johansson, The Swedish National Archives, Stockholm, Sweden

Karl-Magnus Johansson is a senior archivist at the Swedish National Archives in Gothenburg, where he works with outreach, education and research. In several published articles and book chapters he has shown interest in the intersection of contemporary art, media theory and archival theory.

Olof Karsvall, The Swedish National Archives, Stockholm, Sweden

Olof Karsvall is a PhD in agrarian history and research leader at the National Archives of Sweden. Since 2005, Karsvall has worked in several research projects around digitization, digital methods and research data at the National Archives. He is a representative within the national research infrastructures funded by the Swedish Research Council and visiting researcher at Stockholm University in human geography.