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What do we mean by successful digitisation of Indigenous cultural heritage? Beyond the ambition to convert cultural heritage materials into accessible and shareable digital formats, we need to ask who can benefit from this process, and how to make it profitable for Indigenous communities themselves. Research about the factors and implications of the digital divide has mostly focused on issues of physical access such as connection, computers, etc.; i.e., the economic divide. The complexity of digital divides also includes a second level addressing the usability divide; i.e., in relation to skills and literacy. However, a third level, called empowerment divide and addressing the benefits and outcomes of usage, has been much less researched. This chapter addresses this third level of divide in relation to Indigenous cultural heritage; i.e., the social and cultural benefits for Indigenous users and communities, based on the study of Sami cultural heritage in two portals, Europeana and Nuohtti.

 Society is transforming due to changes in demographics, the environment, and technology, and thus faces multiple challenges. In this context, data coordination and access, collectively referred to as the digital transformation, are key to addressing anticipated societal tensions.

This interview-based qualitative study focuses on how researchers responsible for large-scale population-based research infrastructure view the opportunities and dilemmas in play in the intersection between data and personal privacy. The objective is to look beyond the glossy formulations of official strategy documents to see how the digital transformation (more specifically, data-driven research) is perceived from the active researcher’s point of view, and what the intellectual negotiation process is like. What is of interest here is how the accessibility of register data is legitimized, and what developments and significant changes are simultaneously taking place. The research questions are:

1) How does the research community acknowledge the tensions and dilemmas between the possible risks and harms of large-scale, data-driven, population-based research, and its potential benefits?

2) How are the accessibility and coordination of research data justified and discussed by the research community, given the risks and potential, in relation to political and societal goals and policies?

With the contemporary Swedish research context as a point of departure, these research questions are addressed based on policy documents about digitalization, and on interviews with researchers.

Previous research has highlighted the limitations encountered in representing the dynamism of language use and contacts. Here, linguistic landscapes from five towns in Northern Sweden are the point of departure for investigating novel perspectives through the geovisualization of multilingualism, with the ultimate aim of understanding how languages in our surroundings help construct public spaces. As an outcome, a web GIS application, based on 6865 thematically analyzed photographs, was developed as an interactive resource for visualizing and sharing the data and enabling new modes of analysis and new research questions. The article describes the data collection and curation processes, app development using GIS software and software-as-a-service, the eventual app design and interaction, and the update and maintenance plans, as well as discussing challenges and considerations related to temporalities, spatialities, and technicalities. The web GIS has potential applications in spatial analysis, research communication, and education.

This paper introduces principles for the application and challenges of small data ethnography in digital research. It discusses the need to incorporate ethics in every step of the research process. As teachers and researchers within the digital humanities, we argue for the value of a qualitative approach to digital contents, spaces, and phenomena. This article is relevant as a guide for students and researchers whose studies examine digital practices, phenomena, and social communities that occur in, through, or in relation to digital contexts.

The Sámi languages, all listed in UNESCO's Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger as endangered to various degrees, meet the various challenges they face according to the demographics of their speakers and the geographical conditions and ideological contexts in which they are spoken. The many efforts and initiatives taking place in Sámi communities indicate the vitality of these languages and their favorable development for the future. Such efforts also indicate that cultural workers, educators, and other community members engaged in the development and the transmission of languages to younger generations are central to this process. They sometimes fill a more important role than the legal and institutional structures that aim at promoting the Sámi languages. Collaboration between language communities in different countries of Sápmi is key to supporting revitalization. In this article, we provide examples of such efforts and initiatives and discuss the challenges to be addressed. We also emphasize the resilience of the Sámi languages—spoken in contemporary contexts, gaining value among the young generation, and taking on new domains.

The contributions in this book shed light on the complexity of surveillance in a digital age and problematise power relations between the many actors involved in the development and performance of surveillance culture. More and more actors and practices play an increasing role in our contemporary digitalised society, and the chapters show how people negotiate surveillance in their use of digital media, often knowingly leaving digital footprints, and sometimes trying to avoid surveillance. The digital transformation will continue in the foreseeable future. The coordination and analysis of data is viewed by many government agencies, corporations, and other actors as important tools for improving public administration, health, and economic growth. For this development to be legitimate, it is important that hard values, such as technical and legal developments, and soft values, such as ethical and cultural values, are taken into consideration. 

Over the recent decades, the possibilities to surveil people have increased and been refined with the ongoing digital transformation of society. Surveillance can now go in any direction, and various forms of online surveillance saturate most people’s lives, which are increasingly lived in digital environments.

To understand this situation and nuance the contemporary discussions about surveillance – not least in the highly digitalised context of the Nordic countries – we must adopt cultural and ethical perspectives in studying people’s attitudes, motives, and behaviours. The “culture of surveillance”, to borrow David Lyon’s term, is a culture where questions about privacy and publicness, and rights and benefits, are once again brought to the fore.

This anthology takes up this challenge, with contributions from a variety of disciplinary and theoretical frameworks that discuss and shed light on the complexity of contemporary surveillance and thus problematise power relations between the many actors involved in the development and performance of surveillance culture. The contributions highlight how more and more actors and practices play a part in our increasingly digitalised society.

The book is an outcome of the research project "iAccept: Soft surveillance – between acceptance and resistance", financed by the Marcus and Amalia Wallenberg Foundation. The anthology’s editors are project members, all based at Umeå University, Sweden: Lars Samuelsson, associate professor of philosophy; Coppélie Cocq, professor of Sámi studies and digital humanities; Stefan Gelfgren, associate professor of sociology of religion; and Jesper Enbom, associate professor of media studies.