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Rethinking archival, ethical and legal frameworks for records of Indigenous Australian communities: a participant relationship model of rights and responsibilities

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Abstract

Archival systems have been based on the conventional understanding of the relationship between record subjects as third parties and record creators as the principal parties to the record transaction, thus limiting the rights of those captured in and by the record. An alternative approach is a participant relationship model which acknowledges all parties to a transaction as immediate parties with negotiated rights and responsibilities. A number of legal and archival concepts support a participant model of co-creatorship and associated responsibilities in relation to ownership, access and privacy. The application of the participant model to Indigenous Australian record subjects, in particular to records about them held in archival institutions or in creating organisations would enhance Indigenous rights in records. Indigenous claims to ownership over archival sources of Indigenous knowledge can be characterised in the legal concept of a bundle of rights that recognises more than one interest to control, disclose, access and use records. Human rights principles in international and national human rights instruments also support the assertion of Indigenous rights in records. Archival and legal reform is required to fully implement the participant model but a number of archival, ethical and legal strategies would accelerate its implementation. The re-conceptualisation of the record subject as a record co-creator can also be applied to non-Indigenous contexts and therefore has significant archival and legal implications.

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Notes

  1. An Australian statute that does have specific provisions for consultation with Indigenous groups concerning state records with information on Indigenous Australians is the State Records Act 2000 (Western Australia), Part 10, General 76 (1) and (2).

  2. This section and the next one—Archival Reform—have benefited from a contribution by Professor Eric Ketelaar to the Centre for Organisational and Social Informatics, the Centre for Australian Indigenous Studies and the Castan Centre for Human Rights Law, Research Forum “Human Rights and Indigenous Archives”, Monash University, Melbourne, 7 August 2009 http://www.infotech.monash.edu.au/about/events/2009/forum-on-human-rights.html.

  3. Public Record Office Victoria, Series VPRS 1694, Correspondence Files. This series contains a number of classes of records as created and maintained by VA 515 Board for the Protection of Aborigines. Correspondents included Board members, other Government officials, suppliers of goods and services, managers of stations and Aboriginal people resident in or having dealings with the stations and depots and copies of outwards correspondence.

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Acknowledgments

I would like to acknowledge the invaluable assistance of Professor Eric Ketelaar in the preparation of this article. The research on which the article has been based has been made possible by a Jean Whyte Research Grant, Monash University, 2008–2009, Professor Eric Ketelaar (Chief Investigator) Livia Iacovino (Senior Research Fellow) http://www.infotech.monash.edu.au/about/news/archive/2008/jean-whyte-fund-recipients.html.

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  1. Centre For Organisational and Social Informatics, Faculty of Information Technology, Monash University, PO Box 197, Caulfield East, VIC, 3145, Australia

    Livia Iacovino

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  1. Livia Iacovino
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Correspondence to Livia Iacovino.

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This article is one of the outcomes of a Monash University, Melbourne, Australia, Jean Whyte research project “Rethinking archival and legal frameworks for records of Indigenous Australian communities of memory: a participatory model of rights and responsibilities” 2008–2009, http://www.infotech.monash.edu.au/about/news/archive/2008/jean-whyte-fund-recipients.html. It builds on a working paper “New Approaches to Rights and Responsibilities in Koorie Knowledge” prepared by the author for an Australian Research Council (ARC) Linkage project, “Trust and Technology: Building Archival Systems for Indigenous Oral Memory”, 2004–2008, a partnership of Caulfield School of Information Technology, Monash University, Centre for Australian Indigenous Studies, Monash University, the Public Record Office of Victoria, the Koorie Heritage Trust Inc., the Victorian Koorie Records Taskforce, and the Australian Society of Archivists Indigenous Issues Special Interest Group, http://www.infotech.monash.edu.au/research/centres/cosi/projects/trust/.

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Iacovino, L. Rethinking archival, ethical and legal frameworks for records of Indigenous Australian communities: a participant relationship model of rights and responsibilities. Arch Sci 10, 353–372 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10502-010-9120-3

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