Listen to the Land

Listen to the Land

The Listen to the Land team’s presentation, The Accidental Archive, focused on the nature of research relationships formed between Indigenous communities and researchers.

Celia Haig-Brown reflected on how relationship building, collaboration, and involving the community heavily in every stage of the research process (from conception to completion) enriched the data that were collected (and the depth/breadth/scope of the project and/or the interpretation of data/social phenomena). Through her project, Celia was further able to build local capacity by training community members in basic filmmaking and record keeping.

Loretta Robinson described the motivations for her sustained engagement with the project by detailing her lived experiences and discussing the value of the research materials to the community for the present and future.

Anna St.Onge‘s presentation, Better Bundles, emphasized preservation and documentation methods for Indigenous communities. By citing GLAM (Gallaries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums) concerns, St.Onge described how developing documentation enables the support for a research team’s budget for preservation beyond the five year mark.

Heather Bergen’s presentation focused on the importance of video tagging, transcripts, and the categorization of video and audio clips. These are all practices which solidify the organization of archives (including metadata) and the maintenance of Indigenous materials within these spaces.