Findings & Discussion: Toward a Reparative Immersive Practice

I. Introduction: Reframing Findings in Immersive Preservation

This section synthesizes the ethical, methodological, and technical insights that emerged through the process of designing and implementing Daufuskie3D. These are not findings in the conventional sense—they are propositions forged in the field, shaped by moments of trust, refusal, improvisation, and reorientation. Together, they argue for a shift from extractive preservation toward a reparative practice—one that affirms Black spatial knowledge, centers relational accountability, and uses immersive tools not to archive the past, but to protect the future.

II. Cultural Listening and Ethical Immersion

Scanning a site of spiritual or ancestral significance demands more than technical skill—it requires trust, cultural literacy, and narrative humility. A pivotal moment in this project came when Ms. Sallie Ann Robinson asked, “Are you a researcher for them or for us?” The question arose in response to my initial plan to collaborate with the island’s Historical Foundation—an institution from which Ms. Robinson had been removed and which lacked meaningful Gullah representation. Her question did not simply expose institutional erasure; it reframed the project’s orientation. It asked, in effect: Who will this work serve? Whose memory will it affirm? And who will own its future?

Shortly afterward, Ms. Robinson invited me to scan her grandmother’s home—a gesture of profound trust that reshaped the trajectory of the work. Rather than aligning with institutions that gatekeep Black cultural memory, the project became rooted in those who have carried it forward across generations. Every decision from that point—what to document, how to annotate, where to host—was grounded in relational consent and accountability.

Preservation without relationship is just capture. Trust is the technology that makes immersive work reparative.

III. Tools and Power: Situated Fidelity, Not Technical Supremacy

The contrast between high-end LiDAR scanners (such as the Leica RTC360) and mobile photogrammetry tools (like Scaniverse and Polycam) reveals more than differences in resolution—it reveals a system of technological gatekeeping that mirrors broader histories of exclusion. The Leica produced millimeter-precise point clouds essential for conservation planning, but its cost, training demands, and infrastructure requirements place it out of reach for most communities. In contrast, mobile tools allowed us to scan sacred spaces quickly, adaptively, and with community input—even improvising with flashlights to augment RGB data in low-light interiors.

These improvisations reflect not a lack of rigor, but a different kind of mastery: one rooted in cultural attunement, environmental responsiveness, and the everyday craft of making do. This aligns with what Nettrice Gaskins describes as techno-vernacular creativity—a practice born of constraint and collective knowledge, not elite access.

The fidelity that matters most is situated. It is not just about resolution, but relevance—about who can scan, who gets to interpret, and whose hands are trusted to hold the memory.

IV. Visualization vs. Analysis: A Methodological Distinction

This project proposes a conceptual distinction between two categories of tools: visualization tools, which support accessible, fast, community-driven documentation; and analysis tools, which produce detailed, georeferenced data suited for modeling, conservation, and legal claims. Visualization tools like Scaniverse and Luma were used to capture tabby ruins, praise houses, and vernacular structures with speed and adaptability. Analysis tools like the RTC360 and Cyclone Register 360 provided precision datasets for more formal preservation applications.

Rather than privileging one over the other, this project embraced both modes. In doing so, it resisted the hierarchy that equates technical superiority with epistemological authority. Instead, it framed fidelity as a question of intent: What is this scan for? Who needs to use it? What does it need to show—and to whom?

This distinction is not merely technical—it is political. It defines what kinds of memory are made legible, whose knowledge is validated, and which futures are made possible through immersive representation.

V. Preservation as a Reparative Framework

Preservation is often framed as a neutral, benevolent practice. But for communities like the Gullah Geechee, it has too often served as a tool of removal—capturing stories while displacing storytellers. On Daufuskie, sites like praise houses, oyster middens, and family cemeteries remain invisible to formal historic registers, even as they anchor living traditions. Ms. Sallie Ann’s home, a vital archive of Gullah life, is excluded from preservation discourse not because it lacks cultural value—but because it fails to meet institutional norms.

This project aligns instead with Christina Sharpe’s concept of the wake—a framework for understanding how Black life is shaped by the ongoing afterlife of slavery. In this view, preservation must be reoriented toward repair: not just recording the past, but reactivating the conditions for spatial justice and cultural continuity.

Preservation is not about freezing time. It is about restoring power. Reparative documentation affirms the sovereignty of those who have kept memory alive despite systematic neglect.

VI. Heritage Economies: From Symbolic Recognition to Material Investment

The tourism economy in Daufuskie, like many heritage zones, trades on the visibility of Gullah culture while excluding its stewards from decision-making and compensation. Ms. Robinson is frequently celebrated in public narratives, yet the cultural infrastructure that might support her storytelling labor remains underdeveloped and underfunded. This project critiques the gap between symbolic recognition and material support—and proposes a different model.

Rather than treating immersive assets as static artifacts for external consumption, Daufuskie3D positions them as components of a living cultural economy. 3D scans, annotated stories, and interactive environments are not ends in themselves. They are tools for digital sovereignty, youth education, and future-oriented cultural entrepreneurship.

To preserve without investing is to extract. Reparative preservation must pair memory work with economic justice—ensuring that those who embody culture can also sustain it.

VII. Institutional Memory and Bridge-Building

The partnership between MIT and Tuskegee University is not just symbolic—it is genealogical. It draws from the legacy of Robert R. Taylor, MIT’s first Black graduate, who helped design Tuskegee’s campus and curriculum. Working with Dr. Kwesi Daniels and the Robert R. Taylor School of Architecture and Construction Science, this project activated a lineage of Black educational excellence and mutual exchange. From scan sharing to curriculum development, the collaboration modeled what ethical institutional partnership can look like.

More than just data, this partnership produced a relational infrastructure: a cross-institutional commitment to capacity-building, historical redress, and co-creation. It practiced the Taylor ethic: Head (rigor), Hand (craft), and Heart (moral vision).

Preservation is not only about sites—it is about continuity. Institutions must collaborate not to extract from Black communities, but to help build the systems that sustain them.

VIII. Conclusion: Toward a Reparative Immersive Practice

What this project offers is not simply a new workflow—it offers a new ethic. Daufuskie3D demonstrates how immersive technologies, when used with care and accountability, can serve as instruments of narrative sovereignty, spatial protection, and intergenerational bridge-building. It asks: what would it mean to scan not to save, but to serve? Not to archive, but to accompany?

This is a preservation practice grounded in listening, in improvisation, and in refusal. It resists the idea that digital tools must be extractive, elite, or institutionally controlled. Instead, it models an alternative: immersive preservation as reparative spatial practice—anchored in community, shaped by relational ethics, and driven by the futures that Black memory makes possible.