Resources
2024 Distinguished Whyte Lecture on Indigenous Data Sovereignty: Never Ceded
Hosted by Professor Chris Lawrence, Associate Dean (Indigenous) and a proud Wadjak/Ballardong man.
In this insightful session, our esteemed speakers explored:
- how the absence of data sovereignty can harm and oppress Indigenous peoples, leading to misaligned health services, hidden records of abuse, systemic discrimination, and cycles of disadvantage
- Indigenous-led initiatives that empower Indigenous peoples to reclaim the collection, ownership, and use of data related to their cultures, histories, and lands
- ways to collaborate closely with Indigenous communities to preserve and strengthen connections to Country.
This year’s Whyte Lecture wasn’t just a discussion—it was a powerful call to action. The conversation underscored the importance of resilience and empowerment in the face of a rapidly changing digital landscape.
Watch the replay to deepen your understanding of why ‘sovereignty is never ceded’—particularly when it comes to Indigenous data—and learn how you can support this vital movement.
The Power of Provenance in the Continuum (2024) by Chris Hurley, Sue McKemmish, Barbara Reed and Narissa Timbery, Archival Science Vol 24: pp.825-845
The paper explores Participatory Rights in Childhood Recordkeeping in Out of Home Care in Australia and Living Archives on Country. It illustrates how the concept of provenance, together with multiple, simultaneous and parallel provenance, can be powerful tools in transforming the subjects of records into active recordkeeping agents. The illustrative examples relate to pioneering research on co-designing extensive suites of rights for co-creators of records who were previously relegated to the status of subjects of the record, and Indigenous archival sovereignty.
The Challenge of Actualising Research in Practice: Implementing the Charter of Lifelong Rights in Childhood Recordkeeping in Out of Home Care by Frank Golding, Sue McKemmish, Barbara Reed (2024) Archives and Manuscripts 52:1, pp. 45-64. doi: 10.37683/asa.v52.11021.
This paper addresses the challenges encountered when actualising research in practice, using the implementation of the Charter of Lifelong Rights in Childhood Recordkeeping in Out of Home Care as an illustrative example. We begin with overviews of the recordkeeping failures of the past and present, and the development of the Charter to address them. We imagine transformed recordkeeping and archiving systems engaging children, young people and Care leavers as creators and decision-makers about their records. We identify challenges and barriers to implementation and discuss the strategies designed to engage major stakeholders in implementing the Charter. The paper concludes by challenging recordkeeping regulators, recordkeeping and archival institutions, current records creators and holders, and the recordkeeping and archival profession to play their essential role in enabling the realisation of this goal and identify the broader relevance of reconceptualising person-centric recordkeeping.
Literature Review for the Charter of Lifelong Records in Childhood Recordkeeping (2020) by Dr Antonina Lewis, Monash University