Native American Digital Stewardship

Annotations by Ashlee Jordan

Definition of Project

The goal of this project is to investigate and explore the literature surrounding the digital stewardship of Native American cultural heritage in information organizations. In this exploration, it is important to note that the international community has paved the way with research for a comprehensive look at how global regions address the same concern with native, indigenous and aboriginal cultural heritages. The over-arching topic discussed in this project includes the challenges encountered by Native American information institutions and the challenges encountered by non-Native American institutions in establishing digital collections of Native American cultural heritage. Breaking this down into subtopics includes examining the ethical implications of exposing Native American cultural heritage on a digital platform, as well as the communication and working-relationship between Native American tribes and their information institutions and non-Native American information institutions and curation professionals. The discussion of digital stewardship is important since the number of digital collections has developed at an accelerated rate within the past decade. This impacts how Native American cultural heritage is introduced to, and exposed on, this platform.

The literature for this project was selected by queries that produced results from terms such as "tribal archives," "digital collections," "digital repatriations," "Native American archives," "digital stewardship," and "digital rights management." The literature selected also attempts to capture research of tribal nations across the United States rather than those isolated to one region. While literature can be found within the field of information sciences, much of the research about the topic is more readily found within anthropology and museum scholarly journals.

Annotations

Christen, K. (2015). Tribal archives, traditional knowledge, and local contexts: Why the "s" matters. Journal of Western Archives, 6(1), 1-19. Retrieved from https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/westernarchives/vol6/iss1/3

The widespread adoption of digitizing collections for access and use in the public domain by information and cultural heritage institutions, and especially that of non-indigenous information and cultural heritage institutions is undeniable. It is easy to access historical and cultural collections with the click of a button to examine a repository’s holdings from anywhere in the world. While this is recognizably a great technological feat, it should not be ignored that this achievement is sometimes detrimental to Native American tribal communities. This article confronts the issue of what is called the “colonial collecting project [that] was a destructive mechanism by which Indigenous cultural materials were removed from local communities and detached from local knowledge systems [which]…remains not only physically distant from local communities, but also lodged within a legal system that steadfastly refuses local claims to stewardship of these materials” (p. 1). Processes are described that any non-indigenous institution can follow to self-reflect, become aware of culturally-sensitive materials within their holdings, and redefine the framework for which they implement the digital curation lifecycle of items and records in their collections, and “meaningfully incorporate indigenous knowledge systems as models in their own right alongside, and as part of, standard Western library systems” (p. 4). An effective solution for access and use of materials among all parties that the author offers, include the Local Contexts project and the Traditional Knowledge (TK) licenses which covers what Creative Commons’ licenses do not address in respect to indigenous cultural material access and circulation in information institutions. This article will be useful for information institutions that are exploring ways to build collaborative working relationships with local tribal communities to create tribal-led digital repositories and establish policies and procedures for digital access and use of cultural material.

Christen, K. (2011). Opening archives: Respectful repatriation. The American Archivist, 74(1), 185-210.

While this article, which focuses on the access and use of materials associated with and attributed to Native American tribal communities, it also explores the digital repatriation of cultural materials and the successes and challenges presented by new digital technologies. One noted success includes the fact that items can be repatriated quickly in their digital form and that digital forms of cultural heritage can attribute a greater sense of meaning and purpose of cultural heritage (p. 187). While this can be recognized as a good thing, the lines can be muddled as to what that means for access and preservation. Understanding this, the article dives into the challenge that digital technologies pose in treating Native American cultural materials such that tribal communities, once gaining digital repatriation of cultural materials, still deal with the struggle to add their voices to public collections and “maintain some traditional protocols for the viewing, circulation, and reproduction of some materials” (p. 185 & 192). To address this concern, the author explores the Plateau Peoples’ Web Portal that allows for reciprocal curation. The project defines a new process and set of standards that are designed to elevate tribal knowledge to institutional Dublin Core metadata; this helps expand the knowledge sets associated with the Plateau collections. (p. 193). Overall, this article seeks to provide answers to the challenges that new digital technologies pose to digital Native American cultural heritage and ways that the challenges can be addressed.

Cushman, E. (2013). Wampum, Sequoyan, and story: Decolonizing the digital archive. College English, 76(2), 115-135.

Decolonizing the digital archive is a recent discussion within the past decade about transferring ownership and responsibility of collections from non-Native American information institutions to Native American information institutions. A recent study was conducted about the development of the Cherokee Nation digital archive and the effort to transition, or decolonize, the traditional archival thought from Western representation to Native American representation. There is a striking difference of priorities that are distinguished between Western archival thought of tradition, collections, artifacts, and preservation and tribal notions of history, place, meaning, perseverance as tenets of thought for archival practices for cultural material (pp. 119-121) . The Cherokee Nation has, so far, worked to deconstruct Western notions in archival practices of their cultural material. This step is important for Native American tribal nations in reclaiming authoritative representation over their cultural materials and share it from their perspective within their own archive. This article would be useful for an institution or other Native American tribal communities who seek to decolonize archived physical or digitized materials.

Hennessy, K., Lyons, N., Loring, S., Arnold, C., Joe, M., Elias, A., & Pokiak, J. (2013). The Inuvialuit living history project: Digital return as the forging of relationships between institutions, people, and data. Museum Anthropology Review, 7(1-2), 44-73.

The Inuvialuit tribe from Canada has received much coverage about efforts to transfer control of cultural heritage materials found within non-Native American collections. Of note, the Macfarlane Collection, housed within the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D. C., has received a great deal of attention since the Inuvialuit tribe resides within Canadian borders and the collection resides within the United States. The Inuvialuit Living History project has been inspired by other projects, such as the Great Lakes Regional Alliance for the Study of Aboriginal Arts and Culture, the Mukurtu Content Management System, and the related Plateau People’s Portal, that works to establish Inuvialuit control over the representation of the MacFarlane Collection (p. 48). A discovery about the process of digital return is that forging relationships between the tribal community and the Smithsonian Institution has been paramount to the success of the project. This article will be of interest to any institution looking for examples of steps for how they can engage with tribal communities to create dialogue to repatriate digital collections and relinquish curatorial control over to those communities.

Leopold, R. (2013). Articulating culturally sensitive knowledge online: A Cherokee case study. Museum Anthropology Review, 7(1-2), 85-104.

Managing culturally sensitive materials, especially when the materials are from and belong to a Native American tribe, can be inherent with challenges. A recent case study of the collaboration between the Museum of the Cherokee Indian and the Smithsonian Institution in a cultural repatriation project is an example of such challenges. The process by which repatriation occurs and the challenges that tribal institutions face when regaining control over cultural materials cannot be ignored. For example, like most other projects, establishing protocols for access during and after repatriation is a challenge due to the sensitive nature of material exposed on a digital platform, either accessed in the public domain or by a member within the tribal community who does not have authorization to view certain material (ie gender roles or status positions in the tribe). This article will be useful to any institution looking for more creative solutions for managing traditional cultural material in a collaborative environment.

Powell, T. B. (2014). The American philosophical society: Protocols for the treatment of indigenous materials. Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 158(4), 411-420.

Communication among repositories and communities, especially that between Western information institutions and Native American tribal communities, is crucial to the success of relationship-building and establishment of trust in the management and treatment of cultural heritage materials. These aspects are imperative to consider for there to be optimal treatment of Native American cultural materials. The American Philosophical Society (APS) remains conscious of culturally sensitive material within holdings and consults with an advisory board of 8 representatives from different Native American nations about how to address access and use of Native American cultural materials. The APS implements a set of protocols that has successfully contributed to trust among the between non-Native American information institutions and tribal communities. Noting the tone and theme, this article would be useful to any organization or institution that is working to establish a formal guideline or similar set of protocols to help build connections with local tribes to discuss how to manage cultural material. This is important not just for physical holdings in collections, but digitized Native American cultural material, as well, since digitized collections experience greater widespread access.

Runde, A. (2010). The return of wampum belts: Ethical issues and the repatriation of Native American archival materials. Journal of Information Ethics, 19(1), 33-44.

Examining other case studies about the Six Nations Iroquois Confederacy and the Onondaga Nation wampum belts provides insight about the ethical issues involved in the repatriation of archival materials and how ethical issues are treated in the Protocols for Native American Archival Materials (p. 34). Repatriation of archival materials could not successfully be advised by NAGPRA (Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act). The Protocols serves as a lens to examine the case of the repatriation of the wampum belts and digital surrogates of the belts in order to help address concerns posed by archives, such as ownership and intellectual property, access to culturally sensitive material, copies and reproductions, and storage and preservation. Implementing a guideline, such as the Protocols when facing challenges, such as ethical concerns about practices, can help diffuse tensions, miscommunications, conflicts, and complexities between non-Native American information institutions and tribal communities. This article provides insight into how the Protocols can fill the void of concern between non-Native American information institutions and Native American tribes who are striving to repatriate Native American cultural materials on a case-by-case basis.

Tribe, K., Hillman, L., Hillman, L., Harling A. R. S., Talley, B., McLaughlin, A. (2017). Building Sipnuuk: A digital library, archives, and museum for indigenous people. Collection Management, 42(3-4), 294-316. doi:10.1080/01462679.2017.1331870

There has been a recent case study of the Karuk Tribe’s, described as California’s second largest tribe, development of Sípnuuk Digital Library, Archives and Museum. The study explores its establishment as a way to “provide self-representation and culturally appropriate access to, control over, and preservation of Karuk cultural heritage” (p. 294). Like other studies that provide background for similar projects, background coverage about the tribe highlights the colonial documentation and collection of Karuk cultural heritage. Addressing this background information provides context for the process to decolonize the archival materials and repatriate back to the tribe. It is important to consider the process by which the tribe created the digital library, archives and museum. They created an advisory board to determine community needs; wrote guiding policies and established protocols, as well as addressed intellectual property concerns; selected a content management system, Murkutu, and staff development. The organization of the project spearheaded by the Karuk Tribe in establishing Sípnuuk has led to its success. Overall, this article provides insight about the process a Native American tribal community can experience when establishing a digital library, archives and museum and would be useful to any institution interested in coaching a tribe in a similar endeavor.

Underhill, K. J. (2006). Protocols for Native American archival materials. RBM: A Journal of Rare Books, Manuscripts and Cultural Heritage, 7(2), 134-145.

While the article addresses Native American archival materials as a broad category, the protocols outlined within the article are easily applicable to the digital archival collections. the Protocols for Native American Archival Materials are “intended to inspire and guide archives, libraries, and tribal communities interested in building relationships and in ‘doing the right thing’” (134). Guidelines and boundaries are crucial for the establishment of open dialogue and trust in any successful relationship. To elaborate, the Protocols aim to build relationships of mutual respect; strive for balance in content and perspectives; address accessibility and use; be conscious of culturally sensitive materials; provide culturally responsive context; address the role of cultural and intellectual property rights; copy and repatriate records to Native American communities; recognize community-based research protocols; provide reciprocal education and training; and raise awareness of the issues in the information professions. As such, this article is best suited as an introductory guide for any institution interested in understanding the topic of Native American archival materials and the repatriation of these materials within those communities, especially in the case of digital archives.

Westmoreland, C. (2018). An analysis of the lack of protection for intangible tribal cultural property in the digital age. California Law Review, 106(3), 959.

There is no question about the concern of intellectual and cultural property rights over Native American cultural material that resides outside of tribal communities in non-Native American information institutions. Federal law has fallen short in effort short in efforts to protect intellectual and cultural property rights for tribal communities. Where other literature acknowledges policies for governments (Native American and non-Native American) to act on good-faith toward one another about this issue, there are thos who lobby for “laws that facilitate negotiations between tribal governments and educational entities to repatriate or license the use of intangible cultural property” (p. 959). This article would be useful for anyone interested in learning about the legal ramifications and shortcomings of law in dealing with protection rights for intangible Native American intellectual and cultural property.