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Imagine: a living archive of people and place “somewhere beyond custody”

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Abstract

In this paper, we challenge the traditional collecting archive model, which disembeds records from their living contexts and preserves them for future access in custodial, institutional settings, characterizing it as a continuing colonization of knowledge structures for Indigenous Australians. Referencing the warrant provided by the findings of the Australian Research Council-funded Trust and Technology research project, we imagine new forms of Archive that reconnect with existing and ancient Indigenous forms back through time, “somewhere beyond custody.” We discuss the Monash Country Lines Archive Program in partnership with Indigenous Australian communities as an exemplar of a decolonized, participatory Archive. We imagine how future research partnerships might conceptualize and model a creative technology-enabled, participatory Archive—a Living Archive of People and Place to contribute to healing and wellbeing. It would aim to embed or re-embed dispersed archival records in Country and reconnect them with the tangible and intangible records of place and people that continue to exist there. Finally, we discuss reconciling research methodologies and methods that would support the realization of our imaginings.

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Notes

  1. The term “Indigenous Australians” has been utilised in this paper to refer to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. The authors acknowledge the diversity of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and communities within this definition.

  2. Koorie is a term of self-identification used by some Indigenous Australian people from Victoria and southern parts of New South Wales, meaning “our people”, “man” or “person.” While using this term, we recognize and respect that this is not a blanket term adopted by all Indigenous Australian people from this region. Many prefer their own clan, nation, or state title, or the generic terms Indigenous Australian or Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander.

  3. “’Dreamtime’ or ‘Dreaming’ has never been a direct translation of an Aboriginal word. The English language does not know an equivalent to express the complex Aboriginal spiritual concepts to white people… ‘The Dreaming’ or ‘the Dreamtime’ indicates a psychic state in which or during which contact is made with the ancestral spirits, or the Law, or that special period of the beginning” (Korrf 2019; quoting Mudrooroo, Us Mob (1995, p. 41)).

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Acknowledgements

The Australian Research Council funded the Trust and Technology project through its Linkage Scheme. We acknowledge the eighty-one participants from the Koorie communities of Victoria who agreed to be interviewed as part of the project, along with thirteen archival service providers, managers and mediators who participated in stage two. The Monash University Chief Investigators were Professor Lynette Russell, Professor Sue McKemmish, Emeritus Professor Don Schauder, Dr. Kirsty Williamson (2003–2004) and Associate Professor Graeme Johanson (from 2005) Justine Heazlewood, Director and Keeper of Public Records, was a Partner Investigator. Diane Singh, the project’s Community Advisor, and Fiona Ross, the research fellow, played an extensive and vital role at all stages of the project. Dr. Livia Iacovino and Professor Eric Ketelaar contributed their expertise in archives and information law to the project. Industry partners were the Public Record Office of Victoria, the Koorie Heritage Trust Inc., the Victorian Koorie Records Taskforce and the Australian Society of Archivists Indigenous Issues Special Interest Group. We are developing a project to research, design and prototype a Living Archive of People and Place in partnership with three communities engaged in the Monash Country Lines Archive, Taungurung people of central Victoria through the Dolodanin-dat Animation Project Group; the Tati Tati, Mutti Mutti, Wadi Wadi, Latji Latji people of Robinvale in northern Victoria; and the Gunditj Mirring Traditional Owners Aboriginal Corporation RNTBC and the Gunditjmara people in Heywood, western Victoria, and two Canadian researchers from the University of Manitoba, Professor Kiera Ladner, Director of Mamawipawin (http://umanitoba.ca/centres/mamawipawin/people.html), and Dr. Shawna Ferris. Established thanks to the generous philanthropy of the Alan and Elizabeth Finkel Foundation, the Monash Country Lines Archive (MCLA) is a collaborative and co-creative project between the Monash Indigenous Studies Centre (MISC), Faculty of Arts and Monash Faculty of Information Technology’s SensiLab. MCLA partners with community groups to produce 3D animations to assist in the continuation of Indigenous Australian languages. To date, MCLA has completed seventeen Country Lines which translate the Indigenous voice into a visual and virtual archive across. Additionally, there are eleven animations communities currently in production or awaiting community approval. These communities are Yanyuwa (NT), Gunditjmara (Vic), Taungurung (Vic), Yawuru (WA), Ngiyaampaa (NSW), Kaurna (SA), Gurindji (NT), Tati–Tati, Mutti–Mutti, Latji–Latji & Wadi–Wadi (Vic), and Garrwa (NT). The core MCLA team at Monash consists of: Associate Professor John Bradley Deputy Director, Monash Indigenous Studies Centre (MISC); Professor Lynette Russell, Director, MISC; Dr. Tom Chandler, Animation Team Leader, sensiLab, Faculty of Information Technology; Brent McKee, Lead Animator, sensiLab Faculty of Information Technology; Chandara Ung, Animator, and Technical Director, sensiLab, Faculty of Information Technology; Dr. Shannon Faulkhead, Finkel Fellow, MISC.

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  1. Centre of Organisational and Social Informatics, Monash University, 900 Dandenong Rd, Caulfield East, VIC, 3145, Australia

    Sue McKemmish

  2. SensiLab, Monash University, 900 Dandenong Rd, Caulfield East, VIC, 3145, Australia

    Tom Chandler

  3. Monash Indigenous Studies Centre, Monash University, Clayton, VIC, 3800, Australia

    Shannon Faulkhead

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  1. Sue McKemmish
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McKemmish, S., Chandler, T. & Faulkhead, S. Imagine: a living archive of people and place “somewhere beyond custody”. Arch Sci 19, 281–301 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10502-019-09320-0

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