La vita in frammenti. Memoria, archivi e digitalizzazione in antropologia visiva

In this essay I reflect on the role of digital devices (mainly camcorders and cameras) in visual anthropology. I use as an example a decade of work creating an archive of memory in Castelnuovo Berardenga, in the province of Siena. For the last 15 years, I have been researching memory and tradition in southern Tuscany by collecting life stories and using the techniques and tools of visual anthropology to produce audiovisual archives, exhibitions, and digital ecomuseums. By reviewing these studies, I aim to demonstrate the intricate connection between anthropological research and digital technology. While digital devices are now essential to data collection, they also raise new concerns and challenges. Drawing on ethnographic cases that intertwine different methodologies (photo-elicitation, photo-reportage, interviews), I interpret images as objects contested between the need to enhance ordinary people’s stories and digitalization, which fragments and dematerializes those same stories.