Data Archiving, Access, and Repatriation

Abstract

Data archiving, data access, and data repatriation are crucially interdependent steps in the research data lifecycle in linguistic anthropology. Data are the digital and analogue materials created in the course of doing research. The practice of archiving data is becoming increasingly necessary and required both to make data accessible and to repatriate them to their source communities. If planned for early and done ethically, data archiving, access, and repatriation can ensure that important anthropological data are preserved and available for years to come.

acervos e a documentação linguística

“…GOOD, 2022). Primary data are the raw audio or video recordings or written observations of language, including narratives, oral histories, elicitation, conversations, interviews, and experimental protocols; secondary data are transcriptions, translations, morphological segmentations, glosses, and other types of annotation that require some level of preliminary analysis to create (HIMMELMANN, 2012;THIEBERGER and BEREZ, 2012;KUNG, et al, 2020). For accessible overviews of language archiving and its history, see also Henke and Berez-Kroeker (2016), Berez-Kroeker and Henke (2018), Kaplan and Lemov (2019), and Kung (2020).…”

“…Metadata are the supporting contextual, technical, and administrative documentation that help to explain the data, including any keys (e.g., codes, orthographies) needed to understand, analyze, and reuse them (KUNG et al, 2020). Table 1, adapted from Conathan (2011), illustrates the levels and types of metadata commonly requested by repositories.…”

“…Rather, they constitute important contextual metadata that potential depositors should keep in mind when organizing materials for archiving. (For further reading on this topic, we recommend NATHAN and AUSTIN, 2004;JOHNSON, 2004;CONATHAN, 2011;and KUNG et al, 2020. ) Key reasons to archive language data are to ensure their longevity and accessibility.…”

Developing a Data Management Plan

“…For some types of projects, such as language documentation or acquisition projects, you might have an ethical responsibility to digitally repatriate (return) some or all of the collected data (Kung 2021). If so, your DMP…”

“…The DMP should include a detailed description of the future of the data to be generated by the project and an explanation of how, when, and where the data will be archived and made available for reuse (i.e., shared). Researchers should explain any modifications to the data that will be needed before they can be submitted to the repository, including anony- If you collected data of any kind in a community (Indigenous or not) that does not have access to your chosen data repository (e.g., access is restricted to the affiliates of the university where the repository is located) or to the Internet in general, establish a plan in your DMP for returning a copy of the research data to the community in a form that will be useful for the community members (Kung 2021). Moreover, if any of the data contains Traditional Knowledge that needs to be restricted for cultural heritage reasons, explain these reasons in your DMP, verify that your chosen archive will accept these materials, how to appraise, select, and prepare your own data for deposit in a digital repository, see Andreassen (chapter 7, this volume).…”