“People Inside”: Creating Digital Community Projects on the YARN Platform

This chapter discusses engagement with public communities on the AHRC-funded YARN project (yarncommunity.org). Reflecting on learning from various co-produced community projects that created and applied YARN, the authors consider the conceptualization of the project’s “publics” in terms of the communities’ co-creations in the project, as well as the meanings and practices of documenting, remembering and disseminating the communities’ histories and heritage. The chapter also examines the approaches to co-production and digital design that produced the platform, and reflects on what the authors have learnt about collaborative digital design, partnership working and producing effective tools for community use. In the process, the chapter interrogates the meanings and practices of research at the convergence of digital community and public engagement in terms of considering the “people inside” the project.