AustLit

'The Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS), Australia’s archival repository for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultural heritage, is the nation’s peak body for collecting, recording, archiving and returning Indigenous-related knowledge and information. Since 1964 AIATSIS has amassed the world’s largest collection of print, audio and film materials on Australian First Nations peoples. This paper canvasses the Deadline 2025 campaign for audiovisual collections at risk and the complexities of preserving audiovisual archives. It argues that while the Plan’s institutional focus is essential, equally essential is institutional leadership in establishing integration with community-held archives, supported by appropriately resourced and skilled community-based partnerships.' (Publication abstract)

'The Aurukun archives held at the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies were initially developed in accordance with a ‘before it is too late’ model. In response to national controversy over proposed bauxite mining on Wik land, the Institute reorientated its documentation strategy towards collaborating with the Aurukun community. Wik people were not so much the subjects of the archive, but collaborators in its production. The outcome was an extensive multimedia archive which underpinned the Wik native title claim in 1993. Since then the collaborative relationship between the Institute and the Wik people has lapsed. Intermittent attempts to repatriate parts of the Aurukun archives were not successful in the long term. While revising controls over key Aurukun record groups, current Institute staff became aware of the extent and some of the strengths of the Aurukun archives. The staff have been attempting to revive the community’s awareness of their archives and their interest in them. Although the community’s interests presently have a different focus, revived collaboration between the Institute and the Aurukun community could result in some form of distributed custody and control of the Aurukun archives which may be of value to Wik society.'  (Publication abstract)

'Ara Irititja is an enduring and multifaceted project that returns and collectively documents Anangu historical material and preserves it for the future. This paper explains why the archival project has been so effective in engaging Indigenous communities and what it is doing to ensure its longevity. In particular, the paper provides details about a new pilot project which has resulted in a software application entitled Ara Winki No. 1, ‘a whole lot of stories’, specifically for use on portable electronic devices, which delivers historical and cultural content of relevance to Anangu in local languages and works to connect the existing archive to younger generations.'  (Publication abstract)

'The authors reflect on the methodology of using digital tools to learn about the experiences of Indigenous people enrolled from 1980 to 2000 as adult students at Tranby, an Indigenous-controlled post-secondary college. This collaboration between Tranby and the University of Technology Sydney drew on debates in post-colonial studies, oral history and archival studies. The authors found that participants prioritised personal control in all social media communication and engaged most actively in person-to-person communication to take part in this research. Participants were eager to share memories of student experiences but they have preferred to contribute to online publications which focused on activities, rather than on individuals. To support participants’ desire for control over digital communication, the authors slowed the pace of online outcome development to allow flexible and ongoing consent arrangements along with non-custodial approaches to oral, archival, photographic and material collections.' (Publication abstract)

'This paper arose from a discussion of the richness of languages used to describe different landscapes of Australia and how the landscape provides the affordances for the language created from this land. More importantly, each language embodies its place and associated world view. This paper looks at how information technology (IT) is supporting knowledge-sharing through approaches used in Indigenous community IT practice and projects to enhance multimedia repositories of knowledge. The origin of any archive is important, in terms of access and control of the use of this material, but also it is important in teaching, to provide the context and connectedness when presenting the material. A collection of knowledge resources can be used to recreate online flexible learning environments around engineering on country and traditional knowledge practices. IT can provide an interactive interface for people wishing to learn the material, through games or worksheet-style activities. Various case studies and their analysis illustrate the way IT can be used to share this knowledge in a legitimate manner across landscapes and cultures. In particular the aim is to understand how authentic this approach can be in view of concerns over appropriation or co-option of Aboriginal knowledge.' (Publication abstract)

'A socio-technical approach is taken to explore a digital archive of Australian Indigenous cultural heritage. The Living Archive of Aboriginal Languages is considered in terms of what it is currently doing and what it was intended to do. Two ethnographic stories focusing on user interactions and the outcomes of an online survey serve to evaluate the effectiveness of the Archive from the perspective of different users. This is then juxtaposed with a consideration of the original grant application, outlining what was envisaged for the project. This analysis serves to highlight some of the contingent relations and diverse socio-technical aspects of a specific knowledge infrastructure, as it allows multiple forms of interaction, new connections and generative activities as people discover, access and interact with the content now and into the future.' (Publication abstract)

'The Strathfieldsaye Estate collection at the University of Melbourne Archives is discussed in relation to recognising, protecting and reclaiming Koori (First Peoples of southeast Australia) heritage. The settler collection includes early 1900s photographs of Koori people within two distinct albums – a family album that includes a series of studio portraits of Koori adults and children, and an album depicting Koori families on Ramahyuck Aboriginal Mission Station. In the past, these albums have been defined by, and limited to, traditional archiving practices excluding Koori interpretation, authorship and social context. Restoring Koori ownership and authorship of intangible heritage plays a large part in consolidating ancestor photographs with Koori perspectives of identity and culture.'  (Publication abstract)

'Semantic Web ontology files can be flexibly programmed to delineate metadata relationships in machine-readable formats to create relational pathways for discovering resources both on and off the Internet. There is a global community of Semantic Web developers and users across a broad multi-disciplinary range of interests who create and share extensible open-source ontologies. In this article, the author will explore the functionality of Semantic Web techniques for representing the ontologies of relatedness through kinship that typically underpin Australian Indigenous knowledge systems, and investigate their potentials for meeting persistent demands among leading Australian Indigenous collections creators and users to be able to search and discover their hereditary knowledge resources in ways that reflect and reinforce their enduring cultural values, ways of knowing and rights-management concerns.' (Publication abstract)

'The Australian National Maritime Museum (ANMM) in their Darling Harbour warehouse store just over one thousand Ilma. The Ilma are performance symbols of Bardi law and custom, which tell stories of the lands and seas of the Dampier Peninsula, King Sound and surrounding islands of Western Australia.  Ilma performances are public and meant for all to see. The ANMM in 2007 resourced detailed documentation of the collection. In 2018 the collection still does not appear on the online catalogue and remains unavailable for public view. While recent efforts have been put into the collection there are important questions to be raised about the responsibility of museums to collections that have contested meanings and serve multiple purposes.'  (Publication abstract)

'Perth-based art dealer Mary Macha was engaged with Indigenous art for almost fifty years. She played a critical role in the development of Aboriginal art in Western Australia firstly in the government sector and subsequently as a private dealer. Her clients included Alistair McAlpine (Lord McAlpine) and Robert Holmes a Court. She was the key player in the development of what became known as the East Kimberley School of art and formed a close relationship with the key artists, Paddy Jamanji and Rover Thomas. After her death in 2017, her archive was sorted and collated by her executors with assistance from the University of Melbourne and vested with the Battye Library in Perth.'  (Publication abstract)

'This voluminous collection is edited by two pre-eminent academics: Darren Jorgensen, a lecturer at the University of Western Australia, and Professor Ian McLean, the Hugh Ramsay Chair in Australian Art History at the University of Melbourne. They have gathered 18 essays that present the myriad ways in which Indigenous culture, history and records are being re-examined and their nature and significance revaluated. In his introductory essay, Ian McLean draws a parallel between the hermeneutic task of the Indigenous shaman and the Western archivist, both being in control of their respective archives, and plots out the convergence of the two approaches in the contemporary Aboriginal art movement. The dynamics of power, control and understanding within Western Indigenous archives which he identifies permeate the essays that follow.' (Introduction)