Thinking Outside the Box: Indigenous Digital Archives

First semester I spent a significant amount of time thinking and reading about the usefulness of digitization for Indigenous societies as a way to manage historic and cultural records. With an upcoming discussion in my Public History class on First Nations involvement in Canadian Museums, I thought it would be appropriate to share some of my findings...

Indigenous archives have long been associated with colonization as a reflection of the alienation of knowledge, culture and physical property.1 Like museums, libraries and other cultural institutions, archives face spatial as well as cultural constraints in preserving Indigenous cultural materials, but they are also recognized as being powerful places which house valuable information that for Indigenous societies can help them to "reassert their rights and reclaim the past."2 In recent years, archives have joined communities and other cultural institutions to design new digital technologies to improve archives recognizing that the digital environment offers accessibility and platforms for collaboration which can provide a broader perspective of cultural collections. However, digital technologies, like these institutions, pose a new set of concerns for Indigenous groups and those caring for collections. Here I will take a brief look at three factors which should be considered when planning an Indigenous digital archives.

1.) Accessibility: ensuring that digitization is an appropriate way for communities to have access to their records, either through the Internet or shared computers at community centers.

Computer access for Indigenous communities varies across Canada. Statistically it has been looked it in the context of education, so mainly access has been provided to communities for uses in schools and community centers. Due to geography, some reserves, or more rural areas of the north however still have not been provided with Internet access. In these cases, efforts should be made to provide them with computers or digital surrogates. Telecommunications can offer the opportunity to share culture and history. The negative point remains, however, that Indigenous societies run the risk of being exploited if they do not have control over their involvement with technology which could result in further undermining cultural values rather than empowering. 3

2.) Recognizing that there are limitations to digitization which can be carried over from the physical archives, for example the quality of collections documentation.

The process of archives going "digital" has for many analysts been one that involves rethinking the space in which archives will be presented.4 What seems to be the key difference is that the the physical archive is displaced in favor of digitization which appears as a more ideal alternative which can transcend space and time. Everyday new Internet archives are appearing on the World Wide Web. Some believe that it is merely "old wine in new bottles?"5. Others feel that digitization can make information more available and allows for more dynamic interpretations of data than what is possible on paper. Hypertext for example offers what one historian has described as: "a non-linear narrative, a form that, by providing the reader with multiple links, presented choices that involved him or her in the process of interpretation."6 This is arguably more immediate than the interpretive linking that occurs in a physical archives.

Generally speaking though, an Internet archive must be "defined" before it comes into existence.7 Selection in this space has the power to shape historical memory, so understanding history and culture before presenting archival information on the Internet is vital. The example of Maori Land Court records management illustrates this point.8 This involved the digitization of historical materials that were considered tapu (meaning sacred and forbidden), so access should have only been made available to particular groups instead of being posted on the Internet. This further demonstrates that only Indigenous peoples can decide what approach is appropriate for digital media.

Archivists and historians have important roles to play in historical research and archival practices which are both key components in the creation of digital archives. Past systems of records management pose difficulties as seen in the example of maps, which have been described and understood differently throughout history. This is reflected in the ways they have been recorded and categorized in archives or within different archival institutions.9 For Indigenous peoples this could effect the research of land ownership or genealogy for instance. Answers to the questions: Who created the map? When was it created? When was it cataloged? Where/how was it acquired? help to determine the reliability of records. Challenges with archival practices are not limited to understanding old cataloging systems, but can also be seen in conservation issues whereby maps are too fragile to actually digitize due to their natural curvature or poor condition, making them unavailable digitally and thus, left out of the digital historical record. The limitations of this media are due to circumstances that exist within records management and have carried over into the "virtual" world. These examples demonstrate that physical archives and digital archives both offer very different experiences, but they are by no means completely independent from one another.

3.)Acknowledging that artifacts in their physical form have special meaning in society is important because although digitization can offer improvements in caring for cultural collections, it cannot always replace what objects symbolize in their physical form and the feelings they evoke.

Withers and Grout have stated that: "there remains an emotional and aesthetic relationship between the observer and the original object that the digital image-viewer relationship cannot replicate."10 However, it is possible that digitizing records can support the access, loans or repatriation which bring communities closer to cultural materials. The Indigenous Management Project(IMP) based out of the University of Queensland, Australia with the Museum of the American Indian explores this concept by"enable[ing] traditional owners to describe and conceptualize museum context in their own words and from their own perspectives."11 IMP highlights the possibilities of emerging grid technologies which provide a digital infrastructure that supports communication, collaboration and what the project has termed "digital repatriation" programs. Maori for example require strict privacy laws which the IMP project supports. Access can be maintained through tools, which enable traditional owners to define the specific rights requirements associated with digital objects, for example the tribe or gender. This new programming element is an extremely valuable asset for collections management. Also, IMP has proposed through a digital repatriation program to relocation digital versions back to a local repository because although gaining control over materials may be ideal, actually having the resources to physically care for them has posed problems.12

I could go on forever with this discussion - but I won't! From what I have outlined here though, it is possible to see that there are numerous considerations when designing ways to present and preserve history in digital form. There is a lot to be gained particularly from the collaborative possibilities that go along with computing. However, in a world increasingly shaped by non-Indigenous people and driven by differing value systems and forms of knowledge, it is in the best interest of Indigenous societies to control the degree to which they will participate in the digital medium.

For further information I recommend checking out these projects as well as the citations listed below:

Project Naming (2005-current) based out of Library and Archives Canada which involves the identification of photos dating back to the 1800s in Nunavut. Local youth were hired to take laptop computer with these images to visit elders from communities where the images originated. This project also aimed at strengthening the bond between elders and youth while tackling a major issue with digital accessibility.

Ara Irititja (‘stories from a long time ago’) is a community-based initiative in Australia. The software engineer’s instructions demonstrates the complex considerations for developing this archive. They were to create a database that handles different media, incorporates cultural restrictions, and is easy to use for an audience with limited literacy and often, failing eyesight.

1. Evelyn Wareham, "Our Own Identity, Our Own Taonga, Owr Own Self Coming Back': Indigenous Voices in New Zealand Record-Keeping" Archivaria, no. 52 (Fall 2001): 27.
2. Ibid., 26.
3. Cora J. Voyageur, Telecommunications, Technology and Native Americans: Opportunities and Challenges, Journal of Distance Education, (2001) http://cade.athabascau.ca/vol16.1/voyageur.html (accessed Dec. 7, 2007).
4.Bernadine Dodge, "Places Apart: Archives in Dissolving Space and Time,"Archivaria, no. 44 (Fall, 1997, 118-131).
5.Lilly Koltun, "The Promise and Threat of Digital Options in an Archival Age,"Archivaria , no. 47 (Spring, 1999), 117.
6. Stephen Robertson, "Doing History in Hypertext," Journal for the Association of History and Computing, vol VII, no. 2 (Aug. 2004)
http://journals2.iranscience.net:800/mcel.pacificu.edu/mcel.pacificu.edu/JAHC/JAHCVII2/ARTICLES/robertson/robertson.html
(accessed December 4, 2007).
7.Koltum, "The Promise and Threat,"119.
8.Wareham, "Indigenous Voices," 41.
9.Charles W.J. Withers and Andrew Grout, "Creating a Digital Web-based Map Archive," Archivaria, no. 61 (Spring, 2006), 39.
10. Ibid., 45.
11.Jane Hunter, Ronald Schroeter, Beavan Koopman & Michael Henderson. "Using the Semantic Grid to Build Bridges between Museums and indigenous Communities,"
http://metadata.net/filmed/pub/GGF11_SemanticGrid.pdf (accessed Dec. 4, 2007),1.
12.Ibid.