Decolonisation, Indigenisation and Digital Returns: Two Case Studies from Australia

This article analyses the 1998/99 ‘Don’t cut off our tongues’ campaign by the Yolngu people from North-East Arnhem Land in Australia’s Northern Territory. This public sphere activity involved a sophisticated media strategy to defend the right to educate their children in Yolngu languages, as well as English. It shows that through a range of media-related practices based in their land, the Yolngu were integral in preventing the Northern Territory government from axing the bilingual education programmes that operated in their schools. This article argues that engaging with a specific indigenous knowledge system offers fresh insights into Australian indigenous public spheres and how they operate.

Globally, losses in biodiversity, cultural and linguistic diversity are interdependent, and accelerating, requiring the design of holistic biological and cultural or ‘biocultural’ conservation practice. Biocultural conservation attempts to reconcile Western conservation intervention with Indigenous stewardship of Country, that inherently includes cultural and linguistic values. In doing so, biocultural conservation aims to safeguard biocultural diversity, protecting ecological systems whilst supporting Indigenous rights and livelihoods. As colonial land management and conservation policies and practices have perpetuated injustices on Indigenous peoples globally, restoration of Indigenous approaches requires shifts in, or devolution of Western hegemony towards collaborative and Indigenous-led approaches, to achieve responsible, mutually beneficial, ethical practice that responds to corresponding directives in contemporary international conservation, development and human rights policies.This thesis details a project aimed at negotiating Western scientific and Indigenous Yolŋu priorities and approaches in a biocultural project that centred on on-Country fauna monitoring in the Laynhapuy Indigenous Protected Area (IPA), north east Arnhem Land, northern Australia. The research was conducted in collaboration with the Yolŋu Yirralka Rangers who manage the Laynhapuy IPA, guided by Yolŋu governance and direction from Ŋaḻapaḻmi (senior Yolŋu rights and knowledge holders). Each chapter represents a key step in negotiating Yolŋu and Western values, priorities, approaches, recording and communicating project outcomes. After the introduction, the second chapter describes the process of Yolŋu-led prioritisation of fauna and places for the Laynhapuy IPA managers. The following (third) chapter built on co-adapting cross-cultural fauna survey methods, to investigate how we could enhance Yolŋu knowledge and aspirations in on-ground fauna monitoring and mesh them with Northern Territory government (Western) standardised approaches. The fourth chapter highlights the application of genetic analyses to improve the biological data of on-ground surveys and explore landscape connectivity. Chapter 5 documents a cross-cultural discussion of the genetics results, including identification and negotiation of Western and Yolŋu key concepts and creation of culturally grounded communication outputs.This research identified 30 Ŋaḻapaḻmi-nominated priority animals for future management and research collaboration in the Laynhapuy IPA. It recorded and enacted aspirations of Ŋaḻapaḻmi for cross-cultural ‘both-ways’ fauna surveys and provides recommendations for future work. Genetic analyses confirmed the species and/or lineage level identities of 13 species from three genera of morphologically ambiguous small lizards (<i>Carlia</i>, <i>Ctenotus </i>and <i>Diporiphora</i>) that were difficult to identify during field surveys. It also provided the first evidence to suggest a landscape barrier is causing north-south genetic differentiation in populations of these species in east Arnhem Land. Iterative and interlocutive discussions using locally developed Indigenous research approach <i>dhawurrpunaramirri </i>(both-ways discussion and negotiation) identified key Yolŋu metaphors that were culturally relevant for conceptual communication of genetics results in Yolŋu Matha. These metaphors helped bridge understanding between Yolŋu and Western knowledge systems, aiding the development of bilingual project communication outputs. In this thesis I demonstrate how the processes of prioritising (chapter 2), gathering (chapter 3), interpreting and sharing (chapter 5, 6) conservation research and data can ‘reconnect people and places’, opportunities often neglected by Western scientists. This project moves beyond previous attempts to record and apply ‘Indigenous knowledge’ in Western conservation practice, towards collaborative, Indigenous-led and mutually beneficial biocultural conservation practice, spanning ecological, genetic, social science and Indigenous research methodologies disciplines.

Global climate change can interact with local drivers, such as ecosystem engineers, to exacerbate changes in ecosystem structure and function, with socio-ecological consequences. For regions of Indigenous interest, there may also be cultural consequences if species and areas affected are culturally significant. Here we describe a participatory approach between the Indigenous (Yolngu) Yirralka Rangers and non-Indigenous researchers that explored the interaction between sea level rise and feral ungulate ecosystem engineers on culturally significant floodplains in the Laynhapuy Indigenous Protected Area (IPA), northern Australia. A feral ungulate exclusion fence array (12 fenced and 12 unfenced plots) was stratified by elevation/salinity to disentangle the effects of salinity and ungulates on floodplain soil and vegetation. We found that exclusion of feral ungulates improved ground cover vegetation, which, according to our literature-derived ecosystem process model, may enhance soil trapping and reduce evapotranspiration to provide the antecedent conditions needed to improve floodplain resilience to sea level rise. The mid-zone of the supratidal floodplain study site was suggested as the region where the benefits of fencing were most pronounced after two years and ground cover species diversity was highest. Ongoing monitoring is required to investigate whether removal of feral ungulates can increase resilience against sea level rise and recruitment of eco-culturally significant Melaleuca species. An interview with a key Yolngu Traditional Owner of the study site demonstrated the importance and effectiveness of the partnership. Yolngu land owners and rangers were active co-researchers and will decide if, when and how to integrate results into feral ungulate management and climate adaptation responses, highlighting the importance of industry-university partnerships in maximising biocultural conservation outcomes.

ABSTRACTThis paper provides an argument that research on women's crying‐songs in north east Arnhem Land can be effectively analysed as a series of shadow‐dances between the researcher, the singer and the performance context. Within this framework, it explores the processes of transmission and reception of a selection of crying‐song texts from one of the most highly regarded female performers in the region. As singing is a powerful force in the making of Yolngu social, spiritual and political life, music making is shown to play a crucial role in authorizing, describing, teaching and controlling social and ancestral knowledge between men and women and by extension the place of the researcher within the community. Through the regulation of knowledge the making and remaking of the singer and researcher is danced out in a web of mutuality, reciprocity and obligation in which processes of ‘strategic formation’ and ‘strategic location’ emerge. Thus, one woman's melodies of mourning are shown to be a musical gift exchange of various shadow‐dances between learning, receiving, performing and mutually engaging in Yolngu ways of knowing and coming‐to‐know.

It is generally accepted by researchers, policy-makers and practitioners that progress in Indigenous education depends on working in partnership with Indigenous people, and that programs and services are best provided in partnership. The 2014–2016 Whole of Community Engagement initiative built a partnership of non-Indigenous researchers with researchers, teachers, education leaders and elders from six remote Northern Territory Aboriginal communities. In this paper we describe the features that led us to characterise the initiative and the remote community and school context as intercultural and complex. The former included methodology, staffing, meeting procedure and interpersonal communication, negotiation of meaning and decision-making. On the basis of this approach, we found that intercultural complexity was strongly evident in schooling in Galiwin’ku, Elcho Island, North East Arnhem Land, which was the community most closely studied by the authors. The paper contributes to the recognition of intercultural complexity in remote Aboriginal schooling, and the potential benefit that its recognition can have for educational outcomes in those contexts.

This collaboratively written paper takes the reader on a journey to Bawaka, in North East Arnhem Land, northern Australia, to explore how a Yolŋu ontology of co‐becoming can inform natural resource management (NRM) theory and practice. By focusing on the process of gathering and sharing miyapunu mapu (turtle eggs) and the foundational Yolŋu concept of wetj, we challenge NRM to take seriously Indigenous ways of knowing and becoming, and to attend to the vibrant, more‐than‐human relationality of our world. We discuss this relational cosmology, highlighting the importance of being aware and attentive, as well as the underlying ethical imperative of responsibility and obligation. We argue that as important as the concept of Caring for Country has been for NRM in Australia, it is critical that the human imperative to care for Country is balanced with a multi‐directional and beyond‐human understanding of the human–Country relationship. This requires engagement with the ways Country also cares and acknowledgement that humans are part of Country and not separate from it. We therefore propose a reframing, that we not only Care for Country but Care as Country. This has implications for understanding the ways that humans can and should relate to the environment as they exist together through co‐becoming.

This paper describes the development of the Digital Library Promotion Project (DLPP) at the National Library of China and the ways in which it has enhanced the access to cultural heritage. In May 2011, China launched the DLPP as one of a series of digital library initiatives which have been developed in recent years. By building an interconnected and distributed digital library platform and resource clusters, and providing digital cultural services in a variety of media, the DLPP enhances public library services in China. The authors found that digital projects such as the DLPP enrich social discourse and increase access to China’s cultural heritage.

Whither the Aborigine

Relational Effects of Data Networks: How Strategically Aligned Data Networks Impact Digital Transformation

Aboriginal people are increasingly making use of digitising technologies for their cultural and educational work. However, databases are not innocent objects. They bear within them Western assumptions about the nature of knowledge, and how it is produced, which may inhibit or undermine the intergenerational transmission of Aboriginal knowledge traditions. Words (or text strings), for example, have a particular constitutive function in Aboriginal epistemology, which implies a rethinking of traditional structures and uses of metadata. Knowledge and truth are understood more in terms of performance than content, which implies something about how digital resources are to be configured and represented. This paper looks at collaborative work done developing a database to support the ongoing work done by Yolngu (northeast Arnhem Land Aboriginal) people in keeping their knowledge traditions strong.

Fine-grain film materials have supplanted the normal positive type emulsions for all variable-density sound-recording and printing operations. The sound-quality improvement realized by the reduction in noise and distortion is now available for all sound operations, including release prints. The paper describes a number of problems encountered and solved in the commercial application of such films for sound recording, including factors affecting the choice of negative and print materials, noise, distortion, sensitometric characteristics, recorder lamp supplies, and noise problems on stages.

In the field of Digital Heritage Studies, data provenance has always been an open and challenging issue. As Cultural Heritage objects are unique by definition, the methods, the practices and the strategies to build digital documentation are not homogeneous, universal or standardized. Metadata is a minimalistic yet powerful form to source and describe a digital document. They are often required or mandatory at an advanced stage of a Digital Heritage project. Our approach is to integrate since data capture steps meaningful information to document a Digital Heritage asset as it is moreover being composed nowadays from multiple sources or multimodal imaging surveys. This article exposes the methodological and technical aspects related to the ongoing development of MEMoS; standing for Metadata Enriched Multimodal documentation System. MEMoS aims to contribute to data provenance issues in current multimodal imaging surveys. It explores a way to document CH oriented capture data sets with a versatile descriptive metadata scheme inspired from the W7 ontological model. In addition, an experiment illustrated by several case studies, explores the possibility to integrate those metadata encoded into 2D barcodes directly to the captured image set. The article lays the foundation of a three parted methodology namely describe - encode and display toward metadata enriched documentation of CH objects.

When one of the world's great visionaries, Thomas Jefferson, sold his personal library to the Library of Congress in 1815, he had what was then considered to be a &#x201C;universal library,&#x201D; not in the sense that he had every book ever published, but that his collection was universal in scope &#x2013; covering all subjects of knowledge and encompassing volumes from around the world, many of them in non-English languages.Jefferson's love of knowledge and belief that all fields of endeavor and creativity were worthy of inclusion in the national library are the guiding principles upon which the Library of Congress was founded in 1800. And they guide us today as well, even though the universe of what is worth collecting has expanded far beyond anything even Jefferson could have imagined.Of course, all of you know the reason why: The digital age has led a revolution comparable to the one started by Gutenberg more than 500 years ago. We have more of everything &#x2013; more books and other printed publications; media invented in the last century, such as film and sound recording; and media that only exists in bits and bytes.Through all of these information upheavals, the Library of Congress's mission has remained unchanged during its more than 200-year history, as we struggle to maintain that &#x201C;universal&#x201D; collection that Congress and the American people expect of their nation's library. The collection, storage and preservation of this inexhaustible flow of information is a problem facing all archival institutions large and small, as well as private industry, state and local governments and federal institutions.The Library of Congress can no longer collect everything, and it can no longer assume the costs of collection and storage as it did when everything we had to deal with was in analog form. We have thus formed a network of more than 100 partners from the public and private sectors to collect and preserve this content that is at risk of loss. And, just as important, the network is catalyzing a nation of digital preservation activists who will help us spread the word &#x2013; as well as the technical expertise &#x2013; on the importance and know-how of digital preservation.

This review paper has been prepared to provide an overview of multidisciplinary research that combines recent findings in the fields that support digital transformation development. The potential impact of digital technologies on organizational performance is the leverage that enables changes in common elements of organizational design; such are strategy, structure, processes, or workforce. According to reports by various authors, choosing an approach to digital transformation potentially includes an emphasis on strategy, processes, a structural approach, a project approach, and other performances. Such transformation is often performed through a portfolio of interrelated projects that change the organization. Most contemporary organizations establish a project management office (PMO) as an organizational entity responsible for implementing digital transformation initiatives. In this article, PMO is highlighted as an element of organizational design that promises success in meeting the demands of digital transformation initiatives, such as digital agility or innovation project management, by introducing new digital competencies into its professional domains. Such extensions of PMO domain expertise may lead to the transformation of “traditional” PMOs into digital PMOs. The paper analyses the cases of application of structural elements of digital PMO and their characteristics in three Croatian companies.

Purpose Project management techniques for digital initiatives must shift with the transformation of content from analog to digital, from singular projects to mass-digitization and large-scale digital preservation. How are project management methods employed across digital practices, from digitization, to online access, to preservation? How can project management methods evolve to create a collaborative workflow across collection and service areas of librarianship, centered on digital stewardship? Methodology/approach Solutions for these questions are illustrated in an explanation of the workflows implemented at the University of Maryland, College Park Libraries and reflected upon in a case study of a recent digital initiative. Findings Centered on the efforts of two departments in the Libraries’ Digital Systems and Stewardship division, this chapter outlines the origins, techniques, and integration of digital project management with a focus on Waterfall and Agile project management. Furthermore, the integration and transition of project management methodologies and tools between groups is emphasized, mirroring the transformation of analog media to digital formats and the requisite shifts in thinking such projects require. Originality/value These case studies are based on research across the profession and implementation at the University of Maryland, College Park Libraries. The local application of two established project management techniques, Waterfall and Agile, are summarized and compared. Though regularly employed in application development, applying Agile project management in libraries is a relatively new practice and has not been widely documented in library literature.