Information Studies

Permanent URI for this communityhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/2249

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Author: search.filters.author.Bull, IaSubject: search.filters.subject.archives

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    Supporting Cultural Rights and Indigenous Sovereignty through Archival Repatriation
    (PoLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review, 2024-09-21) Sorensen, Amanda H.; Bull, Ia; Marsh, Diana; Lee, Samantha
    Primary source materials are irreplaceable cultural resources for the communities in which they originated, particularly when they derive from Native and Indigenous communities (Parezo 1999). These communities have been disenfranchised from their own information, data, and knowledge through the evidentiary and collecting practices of historical anthropological researchers, as well as the actions of archives, museums, and other collecting institutions. Knowledge extraction, wherein practitioners collect data for their own uses without appreciation of originating community perspectives or needs to access the data, was frequent in the early years of the discipline (First Archivists Circle 2007; Christen and Anderson 2019, 92-3). This localized information (regarding religious or ceremonial practices, for example) was dispersed to archives worldwide via what scholars have called an “archival diaspora” (Punzalan 2014a), effectively removing archives from the hands of originating communities. Furthermore, anthropologists have at times created field records in the context of assimilation and genocide, or through imbalanced and unethical power relations (O’Neal 2014). These historical factors underscore the ethical responsibility of archivists and data curators to provide community access to archival and unpublished information. There is a strong need for political and legal anthropologists, cultural heritage professionals, and policy writers to not only center human rights in ongoing research, but also to place Indigenous Knowledge Systems at the core of their efforts (O’Neal 2019, 50). We argue that the repatriation of archival materials (including physical repatriation but also encompassing ownership transfer or shared stewardship) is crucial to protecting “moral and material interests” embedded in community knowledge, language, storytelling, survivance, and the wider “cultural life of the community” (United Nations 2007).
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    Piloting Reparative Description and Metadata in SNAC via the Indigenous Description Group
    (Descriptive Notes, 2024-04-02) Bull, Ia; Chapman, Lindsey; Curliss, Lydia; Hamilton, Mik; Marsh, Diana; Martin, Worthy; Miller, Jerrid Lee; Pipestem, Veronica; Smoke, Ugoma; Sorensen, Amanda H; Stoner, Melissa
    Archivists have recognized the need to rethink how this knowledge can be better represented, not only to heal previous harms but also to make information more accessible and usable for communities. A number of professional organizations and working groups have been developing inclusive description policies, resources, and approaches that can be leveraged in a wide range of institutional contexts. In March 2023, we launched Indigenous Description Group (IDG)–modeled after SNAC’s Enslaved Description Group (EDG)–within SNAC’s Editorial Standards Working Group. The goals of the IDG are to 1) improve accessibility to archival collections for Indigenous Tribal communities; 2) mitigate harm caused by extractive collecting processes; and 3) engage in reparative description across systems, at scale, and in an interoperable way.