Archival Returns: Central Australia and Beyond

Archival Returns: Central Australia and Beyond explores the strategies and practices by which cultural heritage materials can be returned to their communities of origin, and the issues this process raises for communities, as well as for museums, galleries, and other cultural institutions. "The book is a successful attempt to move beyond arguments for the rights of indigenous communities into the more logistical arenas of how these rights, principles and cultural practices can be upheld in record-keeping and archival contexts." ‘Archival Returns holds great potential for inspiring First Nations communities, researchers and cultural institution practitioners in their own community-centred initiatives and research … This volume helpfully offers, through case studies, a number of tools that older and younger generations in Aboriginal communities can employ to protect, manage and maintain place-based cultural learning in archival materials.’ ''I realized that what I had gained from this book was so much more than specialist or technical knowledge. The authors explore many different layers of meaning, providing the opportunity to reflect on why the process of returning knowledge back to Country and the decolonization of archives, libraries, and museums are vital steps for sovereignty and self-determination of Aboriginal peoples and communities ... recommended reading for archivists, anthropologists, curators, and any other professionals working to promote sovereignty and self-determination of Aboriginal peoples within the information sector.''

“reveals layers of complexity in the deceptively simple process of repatriation or archival return ... important for folklorists, ethnomusicologists, archivists, and anthropologists working with Aboriginal communities and cultural-heritage materials, but it warrants attention from a broader audience ... highlights tangible and inspiring efforts to decolonize the work of cultural-heritage institutions.”

Archival Returns: Central Australia and Beyond was co-published with the University of Hawai''i Press. It is also available in open access through the Language Documentation & Conservation journal.

Winner of the Australian Society of Archivists Mander Jones Award

Place-based cultural knowledge – of ceremonies, songs, stories, language, kinship and ecology – binds Australian Indigenous societies together. Over the last 100 years or so, records of this knowledge in many different formats – audiocassettes, photographs, films, written texts, maps, and digital recordings – have been accumulating at an ever-increasing rate. Yet this extensive documentary heritage is dispersed. In many cases, the Indigenous people who participated in the creation of the records, or their descendants, have little idea of where to find the records or how to access them. Some records are held precariously in ad hoc collections, and their caretakers may be perplexed as to how to ensure that they are looked after.

Archival Returns: Central Australia and Beyond explores the strategies and practices by which cultural heritage materials can be returned to their communities of origin, and the issues this process raises for communities, as well as for museums, galleries, and other cultural institutions.

• | Author: Jennifer Green, Petronella Vaarzon-Morel, Linda Barwick
• | Publisher: Sydney University Press
• | Publication Date: Feb 03, 2020
• | Number of Pages:
• | Language:
• | Binding: Paperback / softback
• | ISBN-13: 9781743326725
• | ISBN-10: 1743326726