This is a complex project with the potential to go in several different directions. At this point, we are still in the process of defining project goals, given these choices. To a large extent, what we do will depend on the site we choose (but establishing that partnership will depend on what we describe doing) so it’s a bit of a catch-22.
We expect to make contact with the congregations/organizations that manage the prospective sites this coming week. In the mean time, our team has been communicating on Basecamp about what we’d like to achieve, and providing reference material to each other, to better articulate what we imagine creating. Everyone has been extremely thoughtful and detailed in their responses to my initial questions about how they see the project in relation to the original proposal. I’ve set a deadline, with tasks, for identifying and establishing a site partnership with a local cemetery: March 6. Between then and now, I think we will need to discuss in more detail our personal wishes for this project, and see where they overlap, in order to develop a clear goal we can all begin working toward. (Understanding, of course, that the project will probably end up looking different from even the hybridized version.)
At this point, I am acting as the PM, Conn is doing outreach, and Davide and Taylor are beginning to develop a theoretical structure that goes beyond “purpose.” (Conn and I are throwing in our two cents on this as well.) For the time being we will keep to this arrangement, and revisit it once we are deeper into the project’s development.
I have been doing a little preliminary research on two cemeteries. I marked up some areal photos which I will bring to class today to spur group discussion (I will upload these as a JPEG later this evening). I certainly don’t know the full extent of data that we might be looking at, but just having some images made the project much more visceral and “do-able” in my mind. Before this I felt confused and intimidated, now I feel a little less confused and nervously optimistic.
I went to a Zotero Citation workshop at the library this afternoon, I will update the group later about this