Language(s) of presentations:
Abstract:
Trust and Technology: Building Archival Systems for Indigenous Oral Memory (T&T) began in 2004 as a research project based at Monash University in partnership with the Public Record Office Victoria, the Koorie Heritage Trust Inc., the Victorian Koorie Records Taskforce, and the Australian Society of Archivists Indigenous Issues Special Interest Group. The aim of T&T was to develop an understanding of how archives can support Koorie frameworks of knowledge, memory and evidence, particularly knowledge that is still stored within the community orally. However our research has highlighted that archivists cannot appropriately engage with Koorie knowledge unless we allow Koorie knowledge systems and Koorie experience as records subjects to reshape the foundations on which our work is based. Using the T&T project as a case study, members of the T&T research team will raise for discussion a range of issues relating to how archivists might respond to the challenges of building culturally inclusive archives.
Target audience:
This session will be relevant to practitioners, educators and archival researchers with an interest in archives in Indigenous and other minority or marginalised communities.
Overall purpose and significance of session:
This session will propose that in order to effectively and inclusively map future society archivists need to embrace the knowledge systems of communities with different cultural perspectives to their own. By using a case study involving Australian Indigenous communities, the session will invite archivists to reflect on the ways in which current professional frameworks marginalise some communities, and to work towards new principles which will allow archivists and Indigenous communities to work together on the challenge of developing culturally appropriate archival systems and services.