Right of Reply to the Archive

For Indigenous peoples across the world, research is an extremely extractive and culturally unsafe process (Harkin, 2020). Typically led by researchers from outside Indigenous communities and cultures, contemporary and historical research practices have substantiated the overarching belief that Indigenous peoples are considered the “researched” subject and not the “researchers” (Martin, 2008). This has led to bodies of knowledge that are not as holistic or genuine representations of Indigenous worldviews and beliefs. Today, Indigenous peoples are reclaiming their stories and knowledges from the archives and colonial records in what is known by the United Nations as a Right of Reply to the Archives (Thorpe, 2022). Indigenous peoples are now telling their stories in their own ways; drawing on their cultural knowledge base and Indigenous worldview to expand and give depth and meaning to what exists in the records that have been created by outsider researchers (Harkin, 2020).

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References:

• Harkin, Natalie. “Weaving the Colonial Archive: A Basket to Lighten the Load.” Journal of Australian studies 44, no. 2 (2020): 154–166. https://doi.org/10.1080/14443058.2020.1754276
  
  

• Martin, Karen Lillian. Please Knock before You Enter : Aboriginal Regulation of Outsiders and the Implications for Researchers. Teneriffe, Qld: Post Pressed, 2008
  
  

PEOPLE AND IDEAS

TEXTS

• AIATSIS. 1938 Aboriginal Day of Mourning & Naidoc Week. ‘We hereby make protest’, https://aiatsis.gov.au/explore/day-of-mourning
  
  
• Dodson, Michael. The End in the Beginning: Re(de)finding Aboriginality, (1994), https://humanrights.gov.au/about/news/speeches/end-beginning-redefinding-aboriginality-dodson-1994
  
  
• Foster, Shannon, and Amanda Harris. “Informing Practice through Collaboration: Listening to Colonising Histories and Aboriginal Music.” In Creative Research in Music: Informed Practice, Innovation and Transcendence. Edited by Anna Reid, Neal Peres Da Costa, and Jeanell Carrigan. Routledge, 2020. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429278426.
  
  
• Harkin, Natalie. Archival-Poetics. Sydney, New South Wales: Vagabond Press, 2019.
  
  
• Harkin, Natalie. “Weaving the Colonial Archive: A Basket to Lighten the Load.” Journal of Australian studies 44, no. 2 (2020): 154–166. https://doi.org/10.1080/14443058.2020.1754276
  
  
• Indigenous Archives Collective. “The Indigenous Archives Collective Position Statement on the Right of Reply to Indigenous Knowledges and Information Held in Archives.” Archives and manuscripts 49, no. 3 (2021): 244–252. https://doi.org/10.1080/01576895.2021.1997609
  
  
• O’Sullivan, Sandy. “Reversing the Gaze: Considering Indigenous Perspectives on Museums, Cultural Representation and the Equivocal Digital Remnant.” In Information Technology and Indigenous Communities, edited by Lyndon Ormond-Parker, Aaron Corn, Cressida Fforde, Kazuko Obata and Sandy O’Sullivan, 139-49. Canberra: AIATSIS Research Publications, 2013. https://doi.org/10.1080/01576895.2019.1587809
  
  
• Sentance, Nathan. Blog Archival Decolonist [-o-]. https://archivaldecolonist.com/
  
  
• Sentance, Nathan. “Remembering, Re-Storying, Returning.” History Australia 18, no. 4 (2021): 823–829. https://doi.org/10.1080/14490854.2021.1991815
  
  
• Thorpe, Kirsten, and Monica Galassi. “Rediscovering Indigenous Languages: The Role and Impact of Libraries and Archives in Cultural Revitalisation.” Australian academic and research libraries 45, no. 2 (2014): 81–100. https://doi.org/10.1080/00048623.2014.910858

AUDIO

VIDEO

Ngara was collaboratively created by Shannon Foster, Jo Kinniburgh (partners at Bangawarra), Amanda Harris, Christopher Coady and Laura Case.

Filming and video editing by Cornel Ozies, Iman Irannejad, additional video recording by Jodie Kell, additional video editing by Jade Guadalupe. 

Original artwork by Shannon Foster.

Thanks to all participants: Rhiannon Brownbill, Chloe Ngelebe Ford, Emily Tyaemaen Ford, Payi Linda Ford, Shannon Foster, Amanda Harris, Eden Tjunggalamuriny Harkins-Ford, Jo Kinniburgh, Matte McConnell, Nathan Mudyi Sentance, Nardi Simpson, and Jacinta Tobin.

This resource was funded by One Sydney, Many People Project Funding from the University of Sydney’s Office of the Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Indigenous Strategy and Services.