Sharing and Preserving Indigenous Knowledge of the Arctic Using Information and Communications Technology

For millennia, indigenous peoples have transferred knowledge to younger generations and amongst each other in a number of ways. In this chapter, the authors draw on their collective experience to discuss the dialogue and approaches that have emerged when using information and communications technologies (ICT) to represent indigenous knowledge (IK) […]

 •   •   •   •   •   •   • 

Gone Digital: Aboriginal Remix and the Cultural Commons

Abstract: Recently the commons has become a predominant metaphor for the types of social relationships between people, ideas, and new digital technologies. In IP debates, the commons signifies openness, the exclusion of intermediaries, and remix culture that is creative, innovative, and politically disobedient. This article examines the material and social […]

 •   •   •   •   •   •   •   •   • 

Digital Data Management as Indigenous Resurgence in Kahnawà:ke

Indigenous peoples are addressing the ongoing impacts of settler colonialism through a variety of expressions of community resurgence. Among these initiatives are those leveraging digital technologies. In the emergent network society, digital infrastructures, and information and communication technologies are powerful tools that can support self-government. In this context, we document […]

 •   •   •   •   •   •   •   •   •   •   • 

Strangers on the Land: Place and Indigenous Multimedia Knowledge Systems

Leggett and Dyson are non-indigenous Australians interested in the potential of designing new media applications that are sensitive to and productive for indigenous peoples. Their research has focussed on development of new media systems that reflect indigenous world-views, particularly with relation to established knowledge-sharing protocols. They demonstrate that there is […]

 •   •   •   •   •   •   •   • 

Wathaurung use technology to take control of their cultural heritage

For over 25,000 years, the land around Ballarat, Geelong and the Bellarine Peninsula has been inhabited by the Wathaurung people. Traditionally, important cultural knowledge was passed down the generations through word of mouth. Today, a simple yet groundbreaking piece of mapping software is allowing the Wathaurung to pinpoint and record […]

 •   •   •   •   •   •   •   • 

Digital Repatriation and Reciprocal Curation: the Ethics of Circulating Native Knowledge in the Plateau Region

Presented by Kim Christen at The University of Arizona’s Knowledge River Program and at the Arizona Archives Summit, January 2011. About Kim Christen From her website: “I am an Associate Professor and Associate Director of the Digital Technology and Culture program in the Department of English and Director of Digital […]

 •   •   •   •   •   •   • 

Digital Dynamics Across Cultures

Introduction (excerpt) Digital Dynamics Across Cultures re-imagines the work of anthropology in the age of digital reproduction, and, by extension, explores the cross-cultural implications of several seeming truisms of the electronic era. While the libertarian impulses and voices fueling the gold rush mentality of Silicon Valley’s dot.com period often insisted […]

 •   •   •   •   •   •   •   • 

Intellectual Property Issues in Cultural Heritage (IPinCH) Project

The Intellectual Property Issues in Cultural Heritage (IPinCH) Project is an international, multidisciplinary research project examining intellectual property (IP)-related issues that are emerging within the realm of heritage, especially those affecting Indigenous peoples. These include complex and often difficult questions about who has rights to and responsibilities relating to use […]

 •   •   •   • 

Indigenous, ethnic and cultural articulations of new media

This article extends a lineage of research that reveals possibilities by which indigenous and ethnic communities have appropriated media technologies to serve their own cultural, political and social visions. This article focuses on networked and database-driven ‘new’ media and information systems, and the possibilities and potentialities these hold within cultural […]

 •   •   •   •   •   •   •   • 

Traditional Cultural Expressions – Existing Codes, Guidelines and Practices

Traditional cultural expressions (TCEs), also called “expressions of folklore”, may include music, dance, art, designs, names, signs and symbols, performances, ceremonies, architectural forms, handicrafts and narratives, or many other artistic or cultural expressions. Traditional cultural expressions: May be considered as the forms in which traditional culture is expressed; Form part […]

 •   •   •   •   • 

Evaluating the Digital Songlines Game Engine for Australian Indigenous Storytelling

Abstract This paper reports on a consultative development cycle with remote indigenous peoples around Australia, the protocols established for their respectful engagement, and evaluation of the digital storytelling game engine developed for them. The Digital Songlines (DSL) digital storytelling project is funded by the Australasian Cooperative Research Centre for Interaction […]

 •   •   •   •   • 

Rights Markup Extensions for the Protection of Indigenous Knowledge

Indigenous cultures have experienced a renaissance over the past 5-10 years as indigenous communities have recognized the importance of documenting and sharing their cultural heritage and history. This has coincided with the explosion of the internet and the widespread application of multimedia technologies to the construction of large online cultural […]

 •   •   •   •   •   •   • 

Reconnecting urban and remote communities via new technologies

Abstract The aim of Ara Irititja is to bring back home, manage and preserve materials of cultural and historical significance to Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara people (Anangu). These include photographs, films, sound recordings, art works and documents from cultural institutions and individuals. Ara Irititja has designed a purpose-built computer archive that […]

 •   •   •   •   • 

Mukurtu CMS

The Mukurtu project began in the remote Central Australian town of Tennant Creek with the creation of the Mukurtu Wumpurrarni-kari Archive. The project was born from the needs of the Warumungu Aboriginal community who wanted an archival platform that allowed them to organize, manage and share their digital cultural materials […]

 •   •   •   •   •   • 

Acknowledging Indigenous protocols: Traditional Knowledge (TK) licenses and fair-use labels

From the Mukurtu website: Mukurtu CMS (mentioned before on this site) makes it possible for you to share your digital cultural heritage using a set of innovative traditional knowledge licenses and labels specifically designed for the unique needs of Indigenous cultural materials. Mukurtu CMS provides several TK license options for […]

 •   •   •   •   • 

Cry Rock: a short documentary about stories, memory and Nuxalk tradition

Synopsis [from the Cry Rock website] Less than fifteen Nuxalk language speakers and storytellers remain in Bella Coola, British Columbia. One of these elders is the director Banchi Hanuse’s 80-year-old grandmother. In a technologically obsessed century, it would seem easier to record Nuxalk stories for future generations, but Hanuse resists. […]

 •   •   •   •   • 

Digitising and handling Indigenous cultural resources in libraries, archives and museums

Abstract Indigenous cultural resources expose long memory trails which extend from understandings of origins to engagement with contemporary challenges. The tangible traces of aeons old intangible experience, they include practical and ceremonial artefacts housed in museums, sites of cultural significance, testimony and stories collected in libraries, and records of experience […]

 •   •   •   •   •   • 

Digitised Indigenous Knowledge in Cultural Heritage Organisations in Australia & New Zealand

Abstract This research project investigates the digital collections from selected heritage organisations, exploring how and if the rights of Indigenous peoples are being protected by policy and protocol documents on the Web. It surveys selected heritage collections across Australia and New Zealand and explores digital collection policies at local and […]

 •   •   •   •   •   •   • 

Return: The Photographic Archive and Technologies of Indigenous Memory

Abstract This paper considers the intersection of Aboriginal traditions surrounding photography and the use of new technologies as both a research tool and a community resource. Over recent decades Australian cultural institutions have radically altered their management of photographic archives in response to changing political and intellectual circumstances – especially […]

 •   •   •   •   •   •   •   •   •   •