This Sense of Place/ this Living Archive: Cocreative Digitization and First Nations Peoples Remembering

Abstract

In 2016, we organized digital storytelling workshops with First Nations1 participants in Melbourne (Australia) to cocreatively “map” sites of historical significance through locative technologies. These digital memory maps allowed participants to share their oral stories about their relationships to different places with broader audiences through a cultural walking trail mobile app from both their individual and their collective perspectives. Functioning much like a museum tour guide in an outdoor setting, we named this app “Memory-scapes,” as it would feature First Nations people's memories of different places, allowing interested members of the public (tourists, students, and educators) to listen to and watch the digital stories as they physically walked the trail. We found that a cocreative archival framework for digitizing these oral histories supported our work with community. Through this project, we illustrate how First Nations people's knowledges are populating the archive in forms that place the control of content back in their hands. These community-driven archives reveal how new archival practices are shifting the media landscape of representational possibilities. While calling attention to the politics of representing place, we also question the emancipatory potential of digital technologies for First Nations people.

Representational work and ‘reverse order’ essentialism: Digitisation of local information in Thailand and Bhabha’s Third Space

“…produced, exchanged, and enlivened through dialogue’ (Shiri et al, 2021: 100). The processes subvert the archival authority (Ridgeway and Guntarik, 2017).…”

“…Many researchers also argue that these needs and concerns are – or at least should be – within the competences and mandates of library and archive institutions (e.g. Brown and Nicholas, 2012; Maina, 2012; Ridgeway and Guntarik, 2017; Shiri et al, 2021). Influential library associations concur, and Maina (2012: 16–17) highlights that the International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA, 2010) is urging libraries to get involved in traditional knowledge issues and that the American Library Association (ALA, 2010) acknowledges ‘traditional cultural expressions’ as playing ‘.…”

“…Issues of participation and control, ICT design for dynamic interaction and contextual/holistic representations, and language related considerations are central to strives towards such culturally ‘responsive and responsible’ digitisation (e.g. Brown and Nicholas, 2012; Maina, 2012; Ridgeway and Guntarik, 2017; Shiri et al, 2021). But what is more, these challenges should also in many cases be understood in light of how one or several ILK cultures are represented within larger, national, contexts; subordinated a dominant culture that, intentionally or unintentionally, may cause additional misrepresentation, discrimination and exclusion of these marginalised cultures.…”

“…A large part of recent critical research on digitisation and representation of ILK types of resources addresses aspects of the above mentioned problematic, and are conducted within the contexts of nations with a colonial past. Examples of the sort describe historical oppression and rectifying projects from First Nations in Canada (Shiri et al, 2021) and Australia (Ridgeway and Guntarik, 2017), Māori tribes in New Zealand (Brown and Nicholas, 2012) and Native Americans in the US (Maina, 2012). Post-colonial theories frequently feature in these studies to help explore ways in which conditions and processes of cultural representation relate to subject positioning, identity formation and relations between ethnic and cultural groups.…”

Bridging the geospatial gap: Data about space and indigenous knowledge of place

“…For example, by encouraging playful interactions with space, location‐based gaming applications have been used to promote place‐making and enhance a sense of place (De Souza e Silva & Hjorth, 2009; Hjorth & Richardson, 2017). Others have recognized the possibilities of using LBS technology for walking tours and digital storytelling for enhancing a sense of place (Butler, 2007), including communicating or maintaining Indigenous knowledge of place (Buxton, 2015; Edmonds et al, 2014; Ridgeway & Guntarik, 2017). Criticisms of LBS point to the privacy threats and surveillance opportunities inherent in the technology (Michael & Michael, 2011).…”