Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book explores how media and technology have been conjoined on the ground in a number of case study projects. The concept of a social technology re-emerged strongly in Brazil, when non-governmental organisations (NGOs), universities and the Brazilian government took it as a basis for increasing social inclusion. Human memory secures one's identities, as the core of practices of responsibility, and is the basis of sense of temporality. It forms part of UNESCO's overall understanding of human memory as a human right to cultural heritage extending into deeper time, and now updated within its Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage. Therefore, to include a right to memory in the Declaration of Human Rights would be a radical departure from the institutionalization of collective pasts and the desire to create umbrellas of cultural memory under which diverse peoples can shelter.