Conference Papers
Session IT3.3. Digital archives connecting generations
1. Shannyn Palmer: Pasts and Futures in the Digital Age: Shared Histories and Knowledge Exchange across the Generations
History assumes a particular significance in a colonised settler nation such as Australia. History here, like much of the physical landscape, is contested territory. Aboriginal perspectives need to be part of a shared history rather than just consulted after the fact; telling their own stories how they would like them to be told. This paper will seek to demonstrate that the rise of digital technology, particularly the digitisation of archival material and the increased popularity of tools such as digital databases and GIS, brings with it the possibility of creatively and collaboratively researched histories that explore a plurality of voices and historical experiences. The success of digital archival databases, such as the Pitjantjatjara Council Social History Unit’s Ara Irititja, demonstrates the possibility of new mediums to both engage young Indigenous Australians with their histories while also facilitating the exchange of cultural knowledge between the different generations. Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians imagine, represent and experience History, and the various places evoked in its telling, quite differently. Aboriginal modes of historical practice and interpretation possess their own regimes of knowledge that work to unsettle Western conventions of History. The rise of ‘Digital History’ represents the possibility of addressing some of the limitations within the discipline and challenging the power relations from which they emerged. Vastly underutilized and heavily controlled primary sources of the archives are becoming more widely accessible. Digital recording devices are facilitating the creation of archival material for future generations that captures the spatial, visual and experiential dimensions of people’s lives. A more active engagement with the possibilities delivered by these new mediums can create opportunities for collaboratively researched histories that engage Aboriginal people in history making and knowledge exchange across the generations.
Author bio: Shannyn Palmer completed her BA Hons (History) at the University of Melbourne, graduating with 1st Class Honours. Shannyn’s research explores the embodied nature of Aboriginal historical practice, the embedded nature of Aboriginal histories within the land and the implications of this for traditional notions of methodology and writing within the discipline of History. She is passionate about methodological innovation and imaginative approaches to scholarly writing. Her strong interest in Aboriginal cultural and historical landscapes, particularly with regard to the mapping and naming of place, has lead to her engagement with historical spaces that are not only archival, but also non-textual and ‘multi-sensory’. Shannyn is currently a Doctoral researcher on the ARC Linkage Project ‘Deepening Histories of Place: Indigenous landscapes of national and international significance’ which seeks to investigate landscape based histories and work to facilitate a deeper engagement with Aboriginal understandings of people and place and the connections between them. Shannyn will be engaging in collaboratively researched, landscape-based histories in Pitjantjatjara speaking South-West Central Australia as part of her PhD research. She will film, audio-record and photograph Pitjantjatjara people’s stories of country and aims to explore how the emergence of digital tools and different modes of digital representation presents the possibility of addressing some of the limitations of the discipline as experienced in a colonized, settler nation such as Australia, while creating opportunities to think about history in new and challenging ways.
2. Sally Anga Scales, John Dallwitz and Douglas Mann: Ara Irititja: connecting generations
As a community-controlled resource, the Ara Irititja Project is structured around an ever-expanding collection of materials and knowledge. The project challenges many conventionally-held notions of archives as static repositories of data which people may visit for purposes of research and retrieval. The Ara Irititja Project is different, responding directly to the needs and expectations of community members, participating in contemporary efforts to preserve language, traditional cultural protocols, and Elders' knowledge, and making these relevant and available in the present, to share across generations. “To have Ara Irititja in our communities helps keep the past in the present and helps keep our culture strong. It is important to link future generations through Ara Irititja to generations past.Today we live in the computer technology time. The computer has a huge brain and is very clever. It can hide things if necessary, and then bring them back later. The Ara Irititja computer is clever like a dingo.” (Wilton Foster, OAM, Chairman, Pitjantjatjara Council, 2005). In 2011, there are 67 Ara Irititja computers in Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara communities in SA, and NT, and in Pitjantjatjara and Ngaanyatjarra communities in WA. Over the years, the project team has built strong bonds and close relationships between archivists, historians, anthropologists, linguists, and Anangu - the Ara Irititja Project is proudly cross-cultural and intergenerational. This team presentation will describe the technological means that Ara Irititja has developed to overcome the dismal lack of affordable broadband in remote and not-so-remote Central Australia, and to deliver its Knowledge Management System to Anangu.
Author bio: Sally Anga Scales is a 22-year-old Pitjantjatjara girl who grew up at Kalka and Pipalyatjara communities and in Alice Springs. Sally was educated at Pipalyatjara, Alice Springs and Adelaide. In Year Ten she spent five months in central India on an international exchange at an Indian boarding school. Sally has worked for many regional Aboriginal organisations including Ara Irititja, Nganampa Health Council, Ngaanyatjarra Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Women’s Council, Pipalyatjara Community Council and Tjanpi Desert Weavers. She has tutored Aboriginal students at an Alice Springs primary school. Since a young girl, Sally has provided feedback to Ara Irititja, in particular about young people’s use of contemporary technology. Sally has represented Ara Irititja at conferences in Canberra, Cairns and Alice Springs. She is chosen frequently by Aboriginal organisations to act in a cultural liaison role to assist communications between Pitjantjatjara people, other Indigenous cultures, and mainstream Australia. Currently Sally is based in Alice Springs and visits family on the Pitjantjatjara lands as much as possible.
Author bio: John Dallwitz originally studied architecture and art teaching in Adelaide, before concentrating on photography and heritage conservation. Since 1986, he has worked exclusively on Aboriginal community heritage projects. In 1991, he was commissioned to create a historical photographic exhibition celebrating the 10th anniversary of Pitjantjatjara Land Rights. This led to ongoing work on Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara history. He is now Archivist and Manager of the Pitjantjatjara Council’s Social History Unit. For the past 17 years he has managed and coordinated the development of the acclaimed Ara Irititja Archival Project.
Author bio: Douglas Mann resides in Adelaide where he operates a Software Development consultancy, Rightside Response. He holds a Bachelor of Visual Arts (Computer Imaging and Multimedia) and a Graduate Diploma in Computer Science. Douglas has consulted with Ara Irititja, Koorie Heritage Trust, PY Media and various non-Indigenous organisations. In 1999, Douglas joined the Ara Irititja Project to develop Ara Winki – Life on the Pitjantjatjara Lands, a multimedia educational resource that was incorporated into the South Australian Museum's Aboriginal Cultural Gallery in 2001. He has continued to consult with Ara Irititja in a technical and creative capacity on several projects. Currently, Douglas is continuing with the development of Ara Irititja's new browser-based Archive and Traditional Knowledge Management System that replaced the ageing FileMaker version in 2010.
3. Hart Cohen, Michael Cawthorn and Rachel Morley: Digital Archives, Datadiversity and Digital Storytelling: The Strehlow Collection as Knowledge Resource for Remote Indigenous Communities
Our project builds on research engagements with community members of (primarily) Ntaria, in partnership with the Strehlow Research Centre (SRC), Alice Springs and the Northern Territory Library. We aim to utilize the successfully implemented Community Stories database to build on the historical and biographical accounts that interlink past and present lives - part of the intergenerational knowledge transfer that will provide immediate visual and textual points of contact for the Ntaria community. The project is an engagement with digital story telling, online learning, and the creative use of the archival materials of the SRC. A part of the SRC’s collection that continues to hold significance in the contemporary cultural context of Ntaria is the fragmentary life histories embedded in the genealogical records held there. This collaboration will continue the important work of both enhancing community awareness of the rich archival resources of the SRC and facilitating creative practices that will enable a meaningful use of those resources. The innovative approach associated with this project is in understanding how database technologies serve the sometimes conflicting purposes of creation and preservation of Indigenous knowledge and institutions established to support these practices. Historically, this moment is a unique opportunity to fashion a common ground using new communication technologies where not only the generations can speak to one another but also where the intersection of Indigenous cultural heritage and Western archival practices meet. Project team: Hart Cohen, Michael Cawthorn, Rachel Morley, Juan Salazar and Lisa Kaufmann-Haldane.
Author bio: Dr. Hart Cohen is Associate Professor in Media Arts in the School of Communication Arts, University of Western Sydney, NSW, Australia and a member the Centre for Cultural Research. He is Associate Head of School and directs Research and Postgraduate Studies. He is currently a principal investigator on the ARC project, Resident’s Voices. Dr. Cohen is founding editor of the on-line journal, Global Media Journal/Australian Edition and a member of the research group CINERG based at Concordia University, Montreal, Canada co-developing projects on interactive nonlinear on-line database narratives. Recent Publications include: Screen Media Arts: An Introduction to Concepts and Practices (2009) for Oxford University Press (with Juan Salazar and Iqbal Barkat.) Knowledge and A Scholarship of Creativity, IM - Interactive Media E-Journal, vol 2010, no. #5, pp 1-8, Conceptualising Digital Heritage Databases in Remote Aboriginal Communities (Information Visualisation 2010 University of London South Bank, IEEE July, 2010). Recent presentations include, Digital archives and discoverability: innovating access to the Strehlow collection,( ITIC, Canberra, July 2010); Database Narratives: Youtube, Database and Immersive Documentary: Challenges for Re-mediated/Remixed Documentary (Visible Evidence XVII, Istanbul 2010).
Author bio: Dr Rachel Morley is an Associate Lecturer in the School of Communication Arts, University of Western Sydney (Australia) where she teaches communications and creative writing. She is also co-host of Shelf Life (TVS), a literary arts television program. Her research interests include literary and creative practice (with a particular interest in biography and autobiography); new media writing technologies; theory and practice in qualitative research (including ethnographies of writing and representation); and the politics and ethics of archival research. Rachel has published scholarly essays on biography and autobiography, the Helen Demidenko controversy, the ‘Michael Fields’, and on Australian women's boxing. She is an Assistant Editor of Global Media Journal - Australian Edition, published by the School of Communication Arts.