Marjolein Uittenbogaard MA

PhD candidate

Area(s) of interest: Digital Humanities, Memory Studies, Migration History & Diaspora, Oral History & Life Writing

Cohort/Start PhD: 2024-2025

Stories Across Borders: Diasporic and Digital Storytelling Between National and Transnational Memories

University of Amsterdam/Tallinn University
Supervisor(s): Prof. Marek Tamm, Prof. Ihab Saloul
Start project: 1-9-2024

Overarching project: “DIGHT-Net: Sustainable, Usable and Visible Digital Cultural Heritage: Twinning for Excellence”

My PhD investigates diasporic and digital storytelling, specifically concerning the Bosnian diaspora and its experiences of mass-violence induced displacement. To do so, I research personal, cultural and digital ways of storytelling, including oral and literary narratives, digital museum exhibitions, and social media, produced by diasporic Bosnians. I aim to research how this diaspora situates itself between different transnational and national contexts through their storytelling, and thus constructs and transmits identities against transnational backdrops through the narrativization of their experiences. In doing so, I place the research in the contemporary context of the rise of right-wing politics and increasing nationalization in both home region and host countries, and in a time of increased global digitalization. This context allows for considerations on what it means to be transnational in a nationalizing age, and the effect of the digital condition on remembering.

My project is part of the Horizon Europe project DIGHT-Net: Digital Cultural Heritage Research Hub, which is a collaborative project between Tallinn University, the University of Bologna, the University of Amsterdam, and the University of Turku.