Digital treatment of African cultural heritage: Shifting landmarks and implications for copyright exceptions for archives

Speaker: Chijioke Okorie (University of Pretoria)
Date: Monday March 24 at 15:00–16:00 GMT. Online only.

This talk examines how copyright law must adapt to facilitate digital treatment of African cultural heritage. It challenges traditional notions of preservation and access, advocating for "agency" as a vital guiding principle for digital treatment. The talk further highlights how this shift empowers institutions and prepares them for future copyright reforms, fostering decolonization and restitution in archival practices.

Chijioke Okorie is Associate Professor at the University of Pretoria, South Africa, and the Founding Director/Principal Investigator of Data Science Law Lab, a research network that deploys research in law and produces evidence and policy advice to support the growth of data science and AI research across Africa. Chijioke led the development of the Nwulite Obodo Open Data License for sharing African datasets openly and equitably. Chijioke is an Associate Editor of South African Intellectual Property Law Journal, and the author of several articles on intellectual property and innovation law issues in Africa.

The Material Digital Humanities seminar is organised by Gabriel Bodard (Digital Humanities Research Hub, University of London, UK) and Chiara Palladino (Department of Classics, Furman University, USA) in 2025. This seminar series will present a range of discussions around materiality and the research possibilities offered by digital methods and approaches. Beyond just the value of digitization and computational research to the study of material culture, we are especially interested in theoretical and digital approaches to the question of materiality itself. We do not restrict ourselves to any period of history or academic discipline, but want to encourage interdisciplinarity and collaborative work, and the valuable exchange of ideas enabled by cross-pollination of languages, areas of history, geography and cultures.