Digitizing Artifacts - Will the real content owner please stand up?
Global colonization has led to the acquisition of indigenous artefacts that are stored in museums in many countries. Colonizers perhaps underestimate the power, mana and wairua that many of these artefacts hold. Why is this important? Indigenous artefacts and knowledge have been systematically taken from indigenous folk over the years (Brown and Nicholas, 2012). Their mana has not been preserved, and these artifacts are sitting in museums globally, sometimes with incorrect information on the item description (Ellis et al., 2023). Many artefacts have not been returned to the indigenous societies they’ve come from, however the artefacts are also not necessarily accessible by the original owner.
If artefacts have been taken from indigenous societies, the question of ownership is raised. So, to, is the question of ownership raised when artefacts are digitized. How can the correct information be offered by museums and other galleries, libraries, archives, and museums (GLAM) facilities when the correct information is not sought, or provided by the indigenous owners? When colonizers have collected artefacts, they generally do not work with the indigenous society; instead the indigenous society, including intimate areas of their lives, are ‘documented’ for the white gaze (Gosai, 2023). Indigenous societies are not afforded the opportunity to explain their culture and ways of life to the colonizers. The long term ramifications of this is that future generations will miss out on having access to accurate information about their indigenous heritage (Stevenson and Callaghan, 2008, as cited in Gosai, 2023).
The bigger question surrounds access to the digitized artefacts. Some GLAM facilities have not yet digitized their artefacts, while others that have limited online access to the artefacts. Intergenerational knowledge is not preserved; it is lost, sometimes forever, leading to the loss of language, culture, and society. If GLAM facilities continue to take ownership of a physical artefact, how much ownership does an indigenous society really have? How do indigenous societies find out if their works are being preserved elsewhere globally?
Digitizing indigenous artefacts opens up a plethora of ethical issues. In particular, who owns the physical artefact, and who owns the digitized version? Does the physical artefact need to be returned to the indigenous owners? How, and when? By limiting access to the artefacts, indigenous owners are unable to provide the correct information to ensure knowledge is preserved. Indigenous owners are also unable to learn about their past from items that help shape the narrative. Can a GLAM organization digitize the content and return the artefact to the indigenous society? The only way to answer these questions is to engage in the process, and bring about a new cycle of change within artefact ownership.
Stuff reports that “eight Maori whakairo rakau (traditional wood carvings) thought lost forever have been rediscovered in six museums around the world” (Smith, 2024). The whakairo rakau were expatriated in the 1820s at the hands of the Church Missionary Society. Professor Deidre Brown spent eight years searching for the lost Ngapuhi taonga, finding pieces in Switzerland and Germany, Canterbury, New York, and Otago.
This is reflective of the time and efforts it takes researchers in connecting with GLAM institutions globally, building and maintaining relationships, and later conversing and holding the space in confirming whether the institute holds any artifacts. Professor Brown notes, “this project has shown it is still possible to reconnect taonga gone for centuries with their communities using the documents and collection records increasingly being put online by museums”. The last part of her comment circles back to one of the first points made in this blog post;
If artefacts have been taken from indigenous societies, the question of ownership is raised. So, to, is the question of ownership raised when artefacts are digitized.
References
Brown, D., & Nicholas, G. (2012). Protecting indigenous cultural property in the age of digital democracy: Institutional and communal responses to Canadian First Nations and Māori heritage concerns. Journal of Material Culture, 17(3), 307-324. https://doi.org/10.1177/1359183512454065
Ellis, N., Macdonald, E., & Almeida, E. (2023). Taonga in a digital world: Māori adornment and the possibilities of reconnection. Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand, 53(3), 362-380. https://doi.org/10.1080/03036758.2022.2090967
Gosai, D. (2023). Indigenous Information Policy in Aotearoa [Unpublished information poster]. Victoria University of Wellington.
Smith, D. (2024, February 20). Missing Maori wood carvings found after 200 years. https://www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/350185585/missing-maori-wood-carvings-found-after-200-years