[Icommons] Aboriginal archive's new DRM: Cultural Solution?

Kimberly A. Christen kim.christen at gmail.com
Fri Feb 1 16:15:18 EST 2008


Hello all,
I just joined this list after I saw there was a discussion about the Mukurtu
archive (which I produced along with the Warumungu community) from this
blog: http://goldwaterlibrary.typepad.com/rgl/

First, let me say I'm glad the archive has sparked some conversation about
other systems of information management, distribution and circulation. The
BBC online article and the Digital Planet BBC radio program that it was
based on (I did the radio interview and then the online news article re-used
some of the bits that weren't aired you can access both the podcast and the
article from my blog: www.kimberlychristen.com) did, I think, a good job
laying out some of the basic issues we faced when building the archive. They
used the DRM frame, I think, because it was a familiar term to the audience
they were targeting (in the case of the Digital Planet show). I do agree
that this term does not "fit" exactly with the archive's use of
already-existing social and cultural protocols to regulate access to and
circulation of content in the archive.  Wendy's post is closer to how we
think of the archive as "building code to support social practice" as she
put it.

The archive, as I see it, is solution to a local problem of access and it
does circulate and get co-opted into discussions about intellectual property
rights, copyright and DRM...variously conceived. IP is a framework that gets
used in indigenous issues not because it fits best, but because indigenous
people have to work within the framework of state legal regimes. I see the
archive however as an extra legal solution to a set of issues that are at
the forefront in many indigenous communities: access to and control over
cultural materials and knowledge. Not to shut these off (which is what I
made clear in the radio bit) but to regulate them based on a social system
that is dynamic and adaptable but that takes as its baseline the fact the
permission should be sought. That is people want to be asked (this point is
also made by anthropologist Fred Myers in the CODE book already referred to
here in this thread).

These social and cultural protocols are not enforcing divisions. Far from
it. These are not sexist or elite sets of restrictions aimed at denying
access and hording off knowledge. Quite to the contrary, this is a social
and cultural system that is based on a system of accountability ( I have
written more about this in an article "Gone Digital" and in a paper for MIT5
last year--both can be downloaded from my blog) in which all members of the
community (including non-human ancestors and territories) play a part in
circulating and generating knowledge and "information" through responsible
sets of acts. One problem is when this type of social system is filtered
through "western" ideals it is assumed that any restriction based on
"difference" is automatically negative or divisive. However, many social
systems exist that route knowledge differently and understand knowledge not
as disembodied or out there for the taking but as part of a human and other
relations--so knowledge doesn't exist apart from a set of relations.

The archive leveraged this already-existing system in which people
distribute, manage and reproduce knowledge to adapt to a digital platform. I
think it shows that there are many ways to deal with information circulation
through social systems--not legal or corporate regimes--that allow people to
take responsibility and act in a dialogue with others. The system assumes an
off line parallel social system in which people seek permission--not because
they *have to* in a legal sense--but because they are responsible members of
a community. In practice if someone wants to see something in the archive
that they don't have access to they go to the person who "holds" that
information and discuss it with them. In fact what we have seen so far is
that the archive itself has prompted many dialogues about materials (many of
which have just been returned or "virtually repatriated" to the community
after having been taken be explorers, missionaries, academics, etc) and
engendered new discussions about "properness" in terms of how the materials
should be circulated.

Sorry for the length of this post. It's great to see the archive generate
this type of cross-talk between so many different types of groups (there was
a long thread over at slash dot too)!

Kim
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