{"id":5454,"date":"2015-07-17T12:09:47","date_gmt":"2015-07-17T02:09:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stumblingpast.wordpress.com\/?p=5454"},"modified":"2022-08-04T00:23:50","modified_gmt":"2022-08-04T00:23:50","slug":"aboriginal-digital-knowledge-takes-centre-stage-at-international-conference","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stumblingpast.com\/2015\/07\/17\/aboriginal-digital-knowledge-takes-centre-stage-at-international-conference\/","title":{"rendered":"Aboriginal Digital Knowledge Takes Centre Stage at International Conference"},"content":{"rendered":"

 <\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The couches came out at #dh2015 for the Indigenous Digital Knowledge panel. Photo by Bruce B Janz via Twitter.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Ground breaking\u00a0use of technology by Australian Aboriginal people was featured at the recent\u00a0Global Digital Humanities Conference<\/a> held at the University of Western Sydney. In a session that captivated the attention of academics from around the world the\u00a0Indigenous Digital Knowledge plenary panel<\/a>\u00a0demonstrated that Aboriginal people are\u00a0innovative in their embrace of technology.<\/p>\n

Unlike so many conferences which non-indigenous people lead the discussion about indigenous issues, three of the four academics on this panel are Aboriginal people. As many Aboriginal people have observed, they are probably the most studied populations on earth, but it is the non-indigenous researchers who get credited in our society for their knowledge about Aboriginal people.\u00a0 It was refreshing to hear from Aboriginal people who are experts in their fields of technology and the humanities tell a non-indigenous audience how it is for Aboriginal people.<\/p>\n

\"PETER_RADOLL_Newcastle\"<\/a>
Professor Peter Radoll<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Professor Peter Radoll<\/a>\u00a0is\u00a0Dean of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Education at the University of Newcastle. He didn’t complete high school and became a motor mechanic until one day Aboriginal elders told him they believed that he should go to university (read about\u00a0his story at ABC Newcastle<\/a>). He ended up doing a PhD in Information Systems on the topic, ‘Stone Chips to Silicon Chips: A Grounded Theory of Information and Communication Technology adoption in Australian Indigenous households\u2014 rural, urban and remote<\/a>‘.<\/p>\n

Radoll pointed out that information technology is not culturally neutral and it is not value neutral. Non-indigenous people are generally the designers of technology. Hence technology is not designed to work in indigenous cultural settings.<\/p>\n

Radoll shared with the conference the exciting IndigenousX initiative<\/a>. This is a suite of social media and news initiatives started by Aboriginal man, Luke Pearson.\u00a0Culture is expressed through technology. It has to fit in with the way we live our lives. The power of the IndigenousX initiative is that it is created in a way which works well with indigenous lives and importantly, allows Aboriginal people tell their stories on their terms to non-indigenous people.<\/p>\n

IndigenousX started on Twitter – @IndigenousX. You can support IndigenousX by following them on your preferred social media networks and supporting the IndigenousX crowd funding campaign<\/a>. (As an aside I liked the story IndigenousX host, Azra Rochester<\/a> told of teaching Aboriginal students about how Aboriginal people served in the World Wars)<\/p>\n

\"Susan<\/a>
Susan Beetson<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Susan Beetson<\/a> is a PhD student from Brewarrina with a degree in information technology and has worked as a systems administrator and ICT manager. She tutors in information systems management at Queensland University of Technology and is researching the experiences of people networking using social media.<\/p>\n

While\u00a0discussing a program she was involved in to provide laptops and encourage digital storytelling by Aboriginal children, Beetson made a profound observation which resonated with the audience. It is not an issue of people not being ready to use technology. The issue, she said, was that technology was not ready for people. This is something we should remind ourselves when we feel confronted when we feel that we are failing when using technology. Quite often our inability to use some technology is really a problem in the design of that technology.<\/p>\n

\"Julia<\/a>
Julia Torpey<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Julia Torpey is doing a PhD in history at the University of Sydney. She has worked on the Deepening Histories of Place<\/a> project at the Australian National University. As Paul Arthur, Professor of Digital Humanities at the University of Western Sydney has observed, this is a digital history project that has done ground breaking work in the area of Indigenous Cultural Intellectual Property Rights management.<\/p>\n

Torpey shared her experience of\u00a0indigenous digital storytelling. With the collaboration of Aboriginal Elders, artists and community members in the Sydney and Blue Mountains region, she has recently completed an enhanced ebook,\u00a0At the Heart of It: Place stories across Darug and Gundungurra lands<\/a>.\u00a0<\/em>(This would be a good book to review for the Australian Women Writers Challenge<\/a>)<\/p>\n

Torpey captures stories of lived lives that she says are not regarded as important enough to be regarded as history. She talked about the importance of trust to encourage storytelling by Aboriginal people and said there was a need for more projects and exchange between researchers and indigenous people over the long-term.<\/p>\n

This reminded me of the problem of\u00a0too many good academic projects which receive funding for less than five years. A lot of good work can be done but then the project just sits on the web, losing the vitality needed to attract interest, gradually losing relevancy and falling into a state of disrepair.<\/p>\n

Torpey talked about the genuine partnership needed between the researcher and the Aboriginal story-teller. She emphasised the importance of sharing the original recording with the storyteller and having clear research protocols in place.<\/p>\n

\"Professor<\/a>
Professor Peter Read<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The final presenter in this session was, Professor Peter Read, the convenor of the panel and the only speaker who is\u00a0not Aboriginal. He was part of a team of Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people who created A History of Aboriginal Sydney<\/a><\/i> website. He urged us to use our imagination and do something meaningful with the technology at our disposal. He also urged us to see a place from everyone’s perspective. Read\u00a0used the example of the meeting place of Aboriginal people on what is now the site of the Sports Academy at Narrabeen on Sydney Northern Beaches. He asked, what did the non-indigenous\u00a0person see? Even though that meeting site was used by Aborigines until the 1950s he observed that non-indigenous\u00a0people did not see them from the Wakehurst Parkway road which ran close to this site. To the non-indigenous person this site was empty and unused, to the Aboriginal person who saw these meetings, this site was an important place.\u00a0Read\u00a0also urged us\u00a0to incorporate the emotional point of view in our visualisations he said. How did people feel in place?<\/p>\n

During the panel we heard that Ted Strehlow’s<\/a> memoir, Journey to Horseshoe Bend,<\/em>\u00a0is\u00a0to be republished online. Strehlow was a researcher of the Arrente Aboriginal people in the twentieth century and amassed a significant collection<\/a> of recordings, artefacts etc. A\u00a0symposium is being organised in October to coincide with the public launch of the work. For the time being you can have a look at the project’s website<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Indigenous Digital Knowledge panel was invigorating because it demonstrated\u00a0the fact that technology operates through culture and is of culture. This became abundantly clear because the discussion was in the terms of a culture that differed to that of most people\u00a0in the conference.<\/p>\n

This was an international conference and thus needed to manage the variety of different cultural and language backgrounds of participants. As the discussion by this panel progressed some of the Australians in the audience became aware that even the native English speakers in the audience would probably be having some difficulty following the colloquial Australian English and Aboriginal English that the speakers on stage were using. We started to tweet explanations of these terms. I wonder how the non-native English speakers in the audience managed to follow the discussion?<\/p>\n

\"Conference<\/a>This highlights the difficulties of organising an international conference. How do the organisers make the proceedings accessible to everyone? The difficulties are not just about language. I noticed the impact of different cultures on the style used to present various papers. The favoured culture of digital humanists tends to be borrowed from the open access, technology culture online. It is informal, humorous at times, while still discussing deep issues and complex problems. It is difficult for a person from a more formal culture or a non-English speaking background to gain rapport with an audience which generally favours an informal tone. There was also a need to provide working microphones in the conference rooms as a quietly spoken person with a heavy accent is\u00a0difficult to hear.<\/p>\n

It is only when we have international visitors that we realise how our culture is developing and differs to others. A common question throughout the conference was from international participants wanting to know more about the Welcome to Country and Acknowledgement of Country<\/a> protocols which are now standard at public events in Australia. This reminder that we are on land that Aboriginal people have cared for over the millenia is important. I recall seeing a\u00a0tweet from a participant from another country suggesting that their country should adopt this protocol. We have a long way to go to develop a respectful relationship with the First Nations of Australia, but I feel that we have taken a good step by adopting these practices.<\/p>\n

A feature of the digital humanities community is how they have embraced Twitter. Throughout this panel and every other session you could hear\u00a0the soft\u00a0tapping of numerous keyboards. A large proportion of the audience was tweeting about the proceedings for people listening in around the world using the #dh2015 hashtag. Twitter is a great communal note-taking and reporting service. The more people who are tweeting the more comprehensively a conference can be recorded.<\/p>\n

Here are a few tweets that convey the general feeling of the audience about the Indigenous Digital Knowledge Panel.<\/p>\n

Norwegian digital humanist and Professor of Digital Humanities at the University of Passau,\u00a0\u00d8yvind Eide, commented:<\/p>\n

https:\/\/twitter.com\/oeide\/status\/616457576645955584<\/p>\n

Australia’s first Professor of Digital Humanities, Paul Arthur observed:<\/p>\n

\n

Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander research most complex + important area of Australian DH #dh2015<\/a> @ADHOrg<\/a> @DH_UWS pic.twitter.com\/0z2g5lmRf6<\/a><\/p>\n

— Paul Longley Arthur (@pwlarthur) July 2, 2015<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n