Sharing research outcomes with traditional owners.

Abstract

In 2003, a template research agreement received ethical approval from the ANU for use in connection with the doctoral research project “Masked Corroborees of the Northwest.” It was intended to recognize Indigenous ownership of cultural heritage consistent with best practice. Agreements based on the template were signed with a number of traditional owners confirming that video footage produced in the research documentation process would be jointly owned. Researcher Dominique Sweeney was then, and remains today, comfortable with restricting his own use to educational purposes. In 2017, one of the Aboriginal Art and Culture Centers involved in the project expressed interest in accessing commercial returns from the video. Revisiting the legal effect of those agreements revealed unforeseen complications. It was not as straightforward as it should have been for the traditional owners to unlock commercial returns from the video archive. This article explores the legal and technical considerations in the ongoing process of making available research video archives to traditional owners with whom the research was done.