ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at value creation through the making of 3D digital models and replicas within collaborative projects between the Tlingit community of Alaska, and the National Museum of Natural History (NMNH) at the Smithsonian Institution. I introduce the concept of digital/object/beings to highlight the relationship between the physical outcomes of the digitization process with the value of these as social animators. This compound notion of digital/object/beings imagines intersectional qualities, because it is from these that they derive much of their value, functionality and power. I also explore them from the perspective of the Tlingit, and the power they have to strengthen links between people over time, as well as how they are viewed by museum staff to embody the relationship between the museum and the Tlingit. To understand the intercultural aspects of these projects, I consider where material culture and consumer research converge, introducing the idea of the ‘moral object/being.’ With this in mind, I argue that through these digital/object/beings, the Tlingit and the NMNH museum staff become part of a network of obligations via the creation of these interculturally and morally informed digital/object/beings.
