This archive was designed against the growing commercial encroachment of public knowledge commons. I saw open research data (governance) as an incredibly important and time-sensitive issue while observing the growing interest by private corporate actors both on the academic side (Wiley digitized and took over management of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland archives in 2018) and Big Tech side (Google’s Arts and Culture program has been digitizing Kenyan cultural heritage). We need to pay attention to who owns (and is trying to own) these data and knowledge infrastructures and figure out how we can get out in front of what is a much bigger growing commercial encroachment on digital public spaces for civic knowledge work.
