Background

Lower Austria is often only seen as an agricultural region. This perception overshadows its rich rural industrial heritage. Indeed, across all four quarters ("Viertel") of the province, numerous smaller industrial sites can be found. However, without more in-depth research and a comprehensive digital catalogue to document these sites and their evolution, much of this heritage stays hidden. Our project seeks to change this by bringing Lower Austria's rural industrial heritage into the spotlight and emphasizing its importance to local and regional identity.

Project Content and Goal

Lower Austria preserves the memories of smaller industries in local museums and archives, but most of the material is not catalogued or accessible through online sources. The same goes for all those personal stories and memories from people who lived and worked in rural industrial communities. Information on how industrialization changed the local environment is also missing.

To draw a comprehensive picture of Lower Austria’s industrial past, the knowledge of contemporary witnesses is indispensable. Their stories and experiences need to be recorded before they are lost forever. For this reason, we use a citizen science approach in this project. We seek collaboration with local researchers and community members and together we explore how knowledge about the local industrial heritage can be documented, processed, presented, and made widely available.

Methods

We partner up with four Lower Austrian industrial history organizations, each from a different "quarter" within the province. Tapping into established citizen scientist networks, we document, catalogue and archive information about the four selected industrial sites and assist in making them available online (e.g., via Topothek, Europeana,…). Interviews with former employees provide individual perspectives on industry and labour at the selected sites. Together with citizen scientists, we develop research questions and methods. We also investigate the often-overlooked social aspects of industry and industrial heritage.

Inclusion is at the heart of the project. Academic researchers develop workflows and quality control criteria together with citizen scientists. Intergenerational aspects also receive great attention. We are interested not only in what contemporary witnesses can contribute, but also reach out to the younger generation and collaborate intensely with both groups. As a result young people may identify more strongly with their regional culture and environment.

The insights gained are shared through workshops, conferences and hackathons. A buddy system to "train the trainers" and recruit additional citizen scientists is also established. These efforts to include a wide range of people create lasting impact beyond the project's duration.

Impact

We systematically uncover information about rural industrial heritage at four sites in Lower Austria, working closely with local people and institutions. Our strong focus on citizen science ensures that knowledge generation and transfer happens on a broad basis, anchoring cultural heritage firmly within communities but also reaching out to everyone else.

The methods, tools and knowledge we generate will be freely available as Open Access material. We plan presentations at events like the Lower Austrian Museum Day, OpenGLAM, and European Researchers Night. We also use platforms like Topotheks and wasbishergeschah.at to make our findings known to a wider audience.

Fördergeber