Name: Researching the Collecting, Preserving, Analysing and Disclosing of Ukrainian Testimonies … (Venken)
Start: 2026-05-04T15:00:00+02:00
Location: Spitalgasse 2, 1090 Wien, Austria

$Researching the Collecting, Preserving, Analysing and Disclosing of Ukrainian Testimonies \u2026 (Venken)$

Lecture format: on site
Venue: Alte Kapelle
Street address: Spitalgasse 2, Hof 2, Eingang 2.8, 1090 Wien
It is a usual practice to place an embargo on the disclosure of testimonies of individuals at risk, such as during an ongoing military conflict, following an act of violence or of those dissenting an authoritarian regime. This lecture shows how to safely disclose testimonies while at the same time protecting individuals at risk. We present a secure integrated digital workflow specifically developed for the collection, preservation, analysis, and disclosure of such testimonies. It is put forward as a recommended best practice to digitally handle sensitive data in oral testimonies during ongoing conflicts. A special focus is placed on three main innovative solutions developed in Luxembourg: an extension of the Clarin Metadata Infrastructure (CMDI) metadata model in the form of a dedicated "sensitive data" field, a four-eyes content analysis method for the detection of sensitive data, and a newly custom-built application enabling granular access management consistent with interview usage categories, automated selection of permissible transcription types and automated muting of sensitive audio segments.
Machteld Venken is a Professor of Contemporary Transnational History at the Luxembourg Centre for Contemporary and Digital History (C²DH). She studied Slavic Languages and Cultures, European Studies and History in Belgium, Poland and Ukraine. Venken earned her PhD in 2008 at the Catholic University of Leuven (Belgium) and her habilitation in 2018 at the University of Vienna (Austria). She is the Principal Investigator for Luxembourg in the trinational research project (WEAVE) 'Researching the Collecting, Preserving, Analysing and Disclosing of Ukrainian Testimonies of the War (U-CORE)', a cooperation between the Centre of Contemporary and Digital History (C2DH) of the University of Luxembourg, the Institute of Philosophy and Social Sciences of the Polish Academic of Sciences and the Centre for Urban History in Lviv.