We focused in this study on how the private experience of pain is made public through online discourse by sufferers of endometriosis. Empirically, we analyse two highly active endometriosis communities on the online social platform Reddit. Drawing on a mixed-methods design, we leverage large-scale social data, and a combination of computational and interpretive approaches for text analysis to study the role and shape of interactions relating to 'pain' for the formation of epistemic community online around endometriosis. The dataset, consisting of 70,817 forum posts and comments, was collected in May of 2021. Our study shows how pain becomes meaningful for endometriosis sufferers in relation to a multidimensional discursive space of words and concepts that are used to express it. Pain was frequently disguised, underplayed or hidden altogether, from fears of misunderstanding, medical dismissal, and embarrassment. Clearly, peer validation can be found in the relative anonymity of Reddit discussions. While the experience of pain is individual and subjective, when communities share similar experiences this reinforces patient ownership of the pain, which in turn supports the epistemic authority of the patient collective. A detailed understanding of how and why pain is discussed in online spaces has much to contribute more broadly to discussions of experiential collective knowledge production among individuals with endometriosis and other chronic illnesses.

A journal for exploring creative engagement with the past, especially through digital means. It publishes primarily what might be thought of as ‘paradata’ or artist’s statements that accompany playful and unfamiliar forms of singing the past into existence.

Digital social science research has had an important impact on the types of methodological approaches to the internet and digital social phenomena, practices and communities. Whilst this paper does not seek to include empirical data, it aims to elaborate further on these debates in digital social research, that is, research on ‘life in digital society’ (Lindgren 2017: 230), using insights from my own research methods. This paper will firstly consider some methodological pitfalls that could sabotage our digital social archaeology research. It will then discuss the importance of understanding the framework and sources of our data. It will outline the two main methodological approaches I have used in my own empirical research to date – ‘thick’ social media data collection and analysis, and digital ethnography. It will discuss some of the many ethical considerations that must be assessed and implemented when undertaking this type of work. I will argue for a methodological pragmatism when undertaking social research in the fields of archaeology and heritage, although this pragmatism can be applied to any field of social study in the digital world.

As heritage professionals, our community-facing projects are embedded in the politics of cultural heritage, and reverberate throughout the communities where we work. The only way to know if archaeological outreach and community engagement are working is to ask stakeholders. Yet undertaking formal evaluation is difficult, with differing expectations and definitions of success, depending on the requirements of funders, the willingness of the participants, and the needs of the practitioners. What do we mean when we discuss successful progress and outcomes for public engagement with archaeology, and how do we analyse these? Are we working towards assessments of our own satisfaction with work done, the satisfaction of the dominant political forms of cultural value, the formal procedures of our funding streams, or the experiential and educational needs of the non-professional with whom we engage?

The Day of Archaeology (http://www.dayofarchaeology.com) was a volunteer-led international archaeological blogging event that ran from 2011 to 2017. The project asked people who define themselves as archaeologists to submit one or more blog posts about their working day on a chosen day in June or July. This article explores the history of the Day of Archaeology project and the practicalities of running a large-scale collaborative blogging project, before examining some of the topics covered in the posts. An assessment of the impact of the project follows. Overall, we hope in this work to answer some of the basic questions regarding this type of collaborative, online, global engagement – what we did, who we reached, what they talked about – and also to provide some insights for any other similar initiatives that may follow us in the future.

This paper focuses specifically on the ethical challenges to the field of digital archaeology and the concerns of the digital public archaeologist. It considers the notions of digital research and ethical data collection, the social and political tensions implicit in digital communications on archaeological topics, and the possible effects on ethical concerns through post-processual approaches to participatory forms of digital media. Through an unpicking of these framings of professional and public interaction with archaeology and archaeologists in digital spaces, this paper proposes several future directions for ethical research, codes of conduct, and practice in digital archaeology.

This article examines the 'punk archaeology' movement through the lens of the present economic circumstances of public archaeology in the United Kingdom. It will situate the DIY aesthetic of punk archaeology within the capitalist economy, and will discuss the variety of political and economic issues demanding critical examination which emerge from the punk aesthetic enjoyed by the protagonists of the movement. It will discuss the impact of surveillance and digital capitalism, prosumer commodification, using volunteer labour to replace paid professionals and overarching ethical considerations. It argues that, while the ambitions of the punk archaeology manifesto are laudable, too little critical thought has been applied to the claims it has made for revolution within the discipline of archaeology, and this article will instead make a case for a more considered approach to public archaeology practice.

Public Archaeology 2015 was a year-long project dedicated to the creation of public engagement and involvement with archaeological projects and subjects. Month-long projects were devised and enacted by both archaeologists and non-archaeologists, with the impact of the project residing in the moments of engagement themselves rather than critical or academic analysis with the benefit of hindsight. In this short article, the convenors of the project discuss the project's central ethos and its relationship to wider debates on co-production and impact assessment in public archaeology. It expands discussion on the opposition therein between impetus provided by 'experts' and from 'amateurs'. The project aimed to use a different mode of operation to existing 'top-down' or 'bottom-up' models of collaboration, and created a democratic situation where different kinds of public engagement with archaeology took place within a wider context of those central terms — public, archaeology, engagement — being kept intentionally fluid and open to interpretation.

From early discussions of the disruptive potential of computer technologies for archaeological applications, to the present era of digital archaeology as the technical underpinning of modern archaeological practice, we have continued to debate the potential impacts of digital communication and digital capture and storage on our knowledge, profession and communications. The increased use of digital tools and methods for archaeological research and dissemination, as well as what Roosevelt (2015) has referred to as the shift to the digital paradigm within archaeological practice, leads us to suggest that the impact of this paradigm shift requires careful and critical examination. This article will examine the edges of the disciplines of archaeology and sociology, where we aim to advance our understanding of the relationship between digital technologies and archaeological knowledge from a uniquely social perspective, using the theoretical approaches of both classic and modern sociologists. The application of this lens of sociology to digital archaeology equips us to understand how archaeology and archaeological practice is situated in a social world, which is especially relevant in the Global West, where digital technology is ubiquitous. Through a critical consideration of the complexity of use of digital technologies within digital archaeology, we can begin to shift our focus away from the character and method of tools and workflow, to the background of intellectual power and influence.

This brief reflection considers some of the inter-relationships of, and implications for, archaeology and heritage in the narrow majority 'Leave' vote in the 2016 referendum on the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union, and the subsequent invocation of Article 50 of the Treaty of the European Union by Theresa May's administration in March 2017. We argue that heritage and archaeology were intimately implicated in the referendum result, and have and continue to play an important role in the rise of what have been termed 'new nationalisms' in Europe. We aim here to consider some of the ways in which this might be said to be the case, and to begin to explore what an emerging Brexit, archaeology and heritage research agenda might look like. In doing so, we aim to engage with a broader popular critique against 'expertise' and to forge a new role for research in archaeology and heritage studies which embeds itself within the very political context it seeks to study.

Abstract Archaeology is a discipline influenced by emerging cultural trends, especially with regard to theoretical approaches to interpretation and practice. Public archaeology is a relatively young approach, still finding its feet, and loose definitions of it have opened the door to multiple perspectives and opportunities. When research agendas include the issue of public engagement, we need to approach our practices critically from the beginning, and consider the consequences of ‘doing’ public archaeology. Moving beyond an understanding of the theoretical backdrop to our work, we first need to situate our work socially, politically and economically. This article will bring necessary critique to some current trends in public archaeology, proposing that commitment to sustainability, inclusivity and ethics are the basis for a responsible practice.

The articles in this section of Internet Archaeology came out of a Theoretical Archaeology Group session at Manchester University in 2014. The session was motivated to explore issues associated with 'digital public archaeology' (DPA). The articles presented here deal with a number of themes which arise when doing digital public archaeology.

The dominance of social media technologies on the Internet has located virtual communities around the use of proprietary social networking platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, although the situation, location and definition of any online community are constantly evolving. Belonging to a number of these online communities, through social networking sites or forums is becoming a normal practice among Internet users. Yet much of the academic analysis of these online communities and networks takes place in isolation from the activities of the community itself in real life. This abstracts the community ties that people also hold offline with their online networks and does not consider the relationships and interactions that may also exist offline. This article will explore the experiences of archaeologists using the micro-blogging platform Twitter, and explore how the format and communication supported by Twitter creates a sense of community online and offline, and support professional and personal networking, using the concepts of weak ties and social capital.

These survey results are from an online survey of 577 UK-based archaeological volunteers, professional archaeologists and archaeological organisations. These data cover a variety of topics related to how and why people access the Internet for information about archaeology, including demographic information, activity relating to accessing information on archaeological topics, archaeological sharing and networking and the use of mobile phone apps and QR codes for public engagement. There is wide scope for further qualitative and quantitative analysis of these data.

The rapid and continual advancement of the internet as a platform for communication on archaeological topics has brought permanent changes to the methods through which we present information from the sector to the public. This article discusses the potential for an exploration of the UK web archives for information about the history of archaeology online, and a case study undertaken as part of a Big Data project at the British Library by the author. The article concludes that we have a significant issue for media archaeologists in the future; the lack of material evidence for these iterations means we risk losing an understanding of our social, economic, cultural, and technological histories and our perception of these developments over time. It suggests that further exploration of these archives from an archaeological perspective could be beneficial both as an investigation of the iterations of digital archaeology (the creation of a history of public engagement with the subject), and as a study of the use of archaeological techniques for archival research.