Difficult Heritage and the Complexities of Indigenous Data

Abstract

For readers of this special issue, data are likely defined in technical terms as established by information and computer scientists. Data, for the informaticist, are facts, measurements or statistics. For the historian, data are historical remnants—often preserved by an archive. For the anthropologist, data can be quantitative or qualitative depending on the question and methods. Disciplinary methods aside, data are not value-neutral and thus must be contextualized in terms of their acquisition, analysis, and interpretation in order to transform data into information. For humanists, the cultural complexities of data and information are not new. Anthropologists, historians, linguists, museum curators, and archivists have long probed the contextual subjectivities of knowledge production and representation. From ink and quill maps representing the New World to the carefully stratified layers of an archeological site, data in the humanities are always subject to the systems of knowledge that were used to capture, represent, and disseminate them.

Connecting Past to Present: Enacting Indigenous Data Governance Principles in Westbank First Nation’s Archaeology and Digital Heritage

“…In a similar vein, Guiliano and Heitman ( 2019 :3) conceptualize “colonial-centric” data as those collected by colonizers about Indigenous peoples, including analogue documents such as journals, records, images and collections that later became constituent to colonial archives. These are differentiated from “Indigenous-centric” data culture, which prioritizes and is “built upon native ways of knowing, representing, preserving, and sharing” (Guiliano and Heitman 2019 :9).…”

“…In a similar vein, Guiliano and Heitman ( 2019 :3) conceptualize “colonial-centric” data as those collected by colonizers about Indigenous peoples, including analogue documents such as journals, records, images and collections that later became constituent to colonial archives. These are differentiated from “Indigenous-centric” data culture, which prioritizes and is “built upon native ways of knowing, representing, preserving, and sharing” (Guiliano and Heitman 2019 :9). As the authors argue, colonial archives were created through extractive activities for the “betterment and knowledge of non-Native peoples” (Guiliano and Heitman 2019 :4), and such highly biased data continue to circulate through modern digital environments.…”

“…These are differentiated from “Indigenous-centric” data culture, which prioritizes and is “built upon native ways of knowing, representing, preserving, and sharing” (Guiliano and Heitman 2019 :9). As the authors argue, colonial archives were created through extractive activities for the “betterment and knowledge of non-Native peoples” (Guiliano and Heitman 2019 :4), and such highly biased data continue to circulate through modern digital environments. Through Edward Curtis’ photographic images in The North American Indian volumes, now downloadable through the Library of Congress, Guiliano and Heitman ( 2019 :8) ably demonstrate how digital circulation of the colonial archive can divorce these data from their histories of production, including erasing historical manipulation of images.…”

“…As the authors argue, colonial archives were created through extractive activities for the “betterment and knowledge of non-Native peoples” (Guiliano and Heitman 2019 :4), and such highly biased data continue to circulate through modern digital environments. Through Edward Curtis’ photographic images in The North American Indian volumes, now downloadable through the Library of Congress, Guiliano and Heitman ( 2019 :8) ably demonstrate how digital circulation of the colonial archive can divorce these data from their histories of production, including erasing historical manipulation of images. In effect, digital circulation has served to further “decontextualize and reappropriate” images of Indigenous peoples.…”

“…In effect, digital circulation has served to further “decontextualize and reappropriate” images of Indigenous peoples. Importantly, Guiliano and Heitman ( 2019 :13) observe that digital humanities scholars remain separate from Indigenous communities, scholars and scholarship, and this situation impacts upon capacity building and development of digital method and practice that prioritizes Indigenous data governance of digital heritage (Pohawpatchoko et al 2017 ; Grey and Kuokkanen 2020 ; Shiri et al 2021 ).…”