Chair: Belinda Battley, ARANZ

Tuesday, 22 October 2019

Lauren Booker, Kimberly Christen, Monica Galassi, Kirsten Thorpe

The session will discuss priorities around engaging with Indigenous peoples to reshape / build archives that are supported by Indigenous self-determination. The contributors to the panel will identify mandates for action to support Indigenous priorities in relation to the management of archives – across government/institutional and community contexts. Aspirations for building archives that do not perpetuate trauma and instead support peoples cultural safety.

Biography

Lauren Booker

Lauren Booker (Garigal clan and Dharug, Western Sydney) is a Research Fellow at The Jumbunna Institute for Indigenous Education and Research at the University of Technology Sydney. Lauren’s work involves facilitating projects with Aboriginal communities for the digitisation of recorded and documented cultural material and the organisation of appropriate digital archives. Her current postgraduate research focuses on institutional ethics and the transparency of collection management and administrative processes.

Kimberly Christen

Dr. Kimberly Christen is the Director of Digital Initiatives for the College of Arts and Sciences and the Director of the Center for Digital Scholarship and Curation at Washington State University. She is the founder of Mukurtu CMS an open source community digital access platform designed to meet the needs of Indigenous communities, the Director of the Sustainable Heritage Network, and the co-director of the Local Contexts initiative, both aimed at providing educational resources for stewarding digital cultural heritage and supporting Indigenous communities in the management of intellectual property.

Monica Galassi

Monica Galassi is an Italian researcher who has been studying, researching and working in Australia since 2010. During her studies and work, Monica has taken a keen interest in connecting with Indigenous people worldwide to discuss new and emerging projects that empower Indigenous participation in libraries and archives. Monica is passionate about finding ways to promote human rights and equality of access, in particular through physical and digital archives. Monica currently works as a Project Officer in the Indigenous Engagement team at the State Library of NSW. Prior to this, she was working with the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Data Archive (ATSIDA) team at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) library, researching ways to connect data held in Italian institutions related to Indigenous Australian people.

Kirsten Thorpe

Kirsten Thorpe (Worimi, Port Stephens NSW) is a professional archivist, who has led the development of protocols, policies, and services for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in libraries and archives in Australia. Kirsten’s professional and research interests relate to Indigenous self-determination in libraries and archives. She has been involved in numerous projects that have involved the return of historic collections to Indigenous peoples and communities, and advocates for a transformation of practice to center Indigenous priorities and voices in regard to the management of data, records, and collections.

Associated documents