Course talk:ARST573/Archives and Repatriation

Hi Allison, I was really impressed reading your wiki page. I’m not sure if you came across this information while conducting your research, but did you find any information regarding the historical development leading to repatriation?

Hi Cathryn,

Yes, I did! The broad history of repatriation is included in specific sections of my page, especially in nation-to-nation and the Indigenous sections, but record repatriation really comes out of the history of war, colonization and decolonization, and human rights movements. I went for breaking things up by topic and types of repatriation instead of a historical overview because I felt looking at it from a historical development angle would end up missing a lot of nuance. If you want to know more about its history very, very broadly, I found this article super helpful:

Peterson, Trudy Huskamp. “Macro Archives, Micro States.” Archivaria 50 (2000): 41-51.

Best, Allison

Hey Allison,

I just have a formatting suggestion that I noticed (acknowledging everyone's eyes are different -- feel free to disregard)

Mostly I'm curious if your final section -- "Repatriation and Indigenous Peoples" could be divided even further? It's relatively more text-heavy than the previous sections which makes it somewhat more difficult to navigate, even with the bolded act names (though, again, maybe just me). Sub- sub sections aren't the greatest, but I liked your overview of this section at the beginning and think it deserves to be separated from your previous sections. Looking at the text you have here, I'm wondering if the following would make sense (or something similar):

• 6 Repatriation and Indigenous Peoples
  • 6.1 United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People;
  • 6.2 United States
    • 6.2.1 Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act;
    • 6.2.2 SAA Protocols (incorporate 2nd paragraph of 6.2 about the Protocols into this sub-section);
    • 6.2.3 Response to SAA Protocols (as a separate sub- sub-section);
  • 6.3 Canada
    • 6.3.1 First Nations Sacred Ceremonial Objects Repatriation Act;
    • 6.3.2 [Library and Archives Canada];
  • 6.4 Australia;
    • 6.4.1 [name of primary repatriation policy/law?];
    • 6.4.2 Court cases;
    • 6.4.3 Australian Law Reform Commission (1990-);
    • 6.4.4 Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander Library Information Resources Network Protocols;
  • 6.5 New Zealand;
    • 6.5.1 [The Museum of New Zealand];
    • 6.5.2 [Treaty of Waitangi/Te tiriti O Waitangi];
    • 6.5.3 [Maori Protocols]

Overall, I think this is an excellent, comprehensive source on Repatriation! You've provided a considerable amount of information with a logical historical analysis. : ) -Other Alison

I think breaking it up is a great idea. It's definitely too much text all at once right now (as Morgan pointed out). Thanks for the suggestions for different sections. I will go ahead and try some out to see what helps!

Allison -

I think yo have created a really great page here. You have provided a ton of great and insightful information and I have learned a lot from your page.

1)I don't have many large comments, just some nitpicky things here and there. My first suggestion might to bold some words and phrases. With pages that are so large and filled with so much information, it is sometimes nice to be able to scroll through the page and have some words that stand out to the reader drawing them to a section other than just the title. You have so much information that I think bolding some words such as person, places, or things, might help readers of the page stay focused or draw them to sections they may otherwise scroll over.

2) I really enjoyed your introduction. It is really well written and drew me into the subject of this page.

3) In the Section reason for reparations the sentence as Bastian has argued... I was immediately distracted at wondering who this was. maybe include a first name or some sort of introduction. I found myself reading the sentence twice because the first time I thought I had missed who this person was.

4) the Section Documents in a nations/ group's language really interested me and although small really caught my attention and it is not always something that is thought about.

5) The ICA section is really great. The flow and breakdown are easy to follow.

I don't have much on the way of changes but I really enjoyed your page and I learned a lot. I think you covered a lot of area but managed to provide a great amount of detail in an easy to understand writing.

Hi Morgan,

Bolding words to help with readability is a GREAT suggestion, thank you! I will definitely take the time to do that. I was trying to think of how to make it easier to read because it is kind of just a big hunk of text right now and really needs something to make it more navigable. I will also change the Bastian reference to make it less jarring. Thanks for this!

Hi Allison,

Christie gave me a big tip about referencing I wanted to share with you. My page was beginning to get very long because of all the "Ibid"s, and I figured out how to use sub-references so it goes [1 ] [1. 1] [1.2 ]...etc, and you can use them everywhere on your wiki where you repeat your references, and there is only one line down at the bottom. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Referencing_for_beginners under "Same references used more than once". I got really excited about that and became *referencing-happy*

JT

Yes! This is awesome. Thank you I definitely need this!

I was just going to ask Allison this -- thanks, Jessica & Christie

Hi Ms. Mills,

first of all, thank you for the shoutout and link to my wiki, it was a nice surprise to see my humble little wiki in your "See Also" section, the favour will happily be returned. As someone who has studied colonialism and post-colonialism, I am really happy to see this wiki and that, of all people, you are working on it given your background and work with First Nations - and as you mentioned, one of the communities where repatriation is a big issue.

Great explanation of the difference between made/about/in/of. This section gives a really good primer on the issue. I really like the areas you've chosen to cover, especially the parts about methods and private holdings. I just feel that a lot of people (but maybe I am just talking about myself here) don't know enough about this area of archives, and in general, and it's great that we're covering it for this project - as opposed to an essay no one else is going to read.

I don't have much in terms of what you could change to make it "better", I just want to let you know that after having read your wiki I am thinking of ways to incorporate some of your material into mine, as I can see the connection with advocacy. If anything, just hurry up and finish it so I can read the completed wiki sooner.

Take care,

V

Hi Victor, Thanks very much for the feedback! I hope you can come up with some ways to incorporate some of the material here into your page. I definitely see a connection between advocacy and repatriation, even if it's in a bit of a roundabout way sometimes. Allison

Hi Allison, Are you familiar with Elazar Barkan? He's written about the restitution of cultural property with a public policy/amending injustice focus. So far as I remember he doesn't write about records, specifically, but a lot of the bigger ideas (identity, rightful ownership etc) related to cultural property and museums are obviously directly transferrable.

Barkan, Elazar. "Amending Historical Injustice." In Claiming the stones/naming the bones : cultural property and the negotiation of national and ethnic identity. Elazar Barkan and Ronald Bush, eds. Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute, 2002. Barkan, Elazar. The guilt of nations : restitution and negotiating historical injustices. New York: Norton, 2000.

If not for the Wiki, interesting reads to tuck away for later. Looking forward to seeing how the rest of your page fleshes out!

whoops! wrong Al(l)ison : ) I should check the spelling next time

It is very confusing online. Sometimes people just don't count the Ls so you never know. I get emails to "Alison" all the time.

Hi Amy, My answer is the same as Alison's anyway! I'm not familiar, but after checking out the bib record for the book it looks super interesting. After skimming the book chapter, I think his perspective would definitely at least add another dimension to my nation-to-nation section. Thanks for the suggestion! Allison

And I have already incorporated him! Great suggestion, thank you!

So glad you found him useful!

Hey Allison, Great topic. I like the way your organization flows, particularly in the "Reason for" section (e.g., differentiation between documents made about/by a nation/group) Just a few initial thoughts: - It might make sense to link to the general Wikipedia page about Repatriation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repatriation) either at the end (external links) or at the beginning (link out from the first mention of "repatriation"), if only to help to place your page in a larger context. - Incorporate more sources throughout? e.g., "Often colonial regimes will take their records when they withdraw from a country." <-- I assume multiple sources are affiliated with this? - Though it's not on my page (Archives in Southeast Asia) yet, Malaysia (and potentially several more countries) stipulate this as a current challenge for their archives (boo colonization). Once I put up the relevant information, perhaps we can add each other to the "See also" sections : ) Impressive work so far! -Alison W

Hi Alison, I've been wondering about adding your page as a see also! I will go ahead and do it now because they're definitely connected. I will also add some more specific notation to the section talking about colonial records since, as you pointed out, currently that section has citations for specific examples but not for the broader contextual discussion. Thanks for the feedback! Allison

Hi Allison,

I'd love to see more discussion about cultural protocols, especially from the perspective of records not just 'about' the religion but they are actually a part of the religion. First Nations masks come to mind or how photographs are perceived by some cultures. You deal with this a bit but I'd love to see more.

What does 'records at rest' mean? why did the ICA choose 1923? I'm also going to be difficult and say I thought the subsections were a bit short and I might prefer bulleted points. However, I didn't see your page beforehand so maybe the subsections are better.

I'm definitely interested to read more about the records in private hands once you fill those examples out a bit! Very interesting!

Hi Adena, Thanks for your feedback! Cultural protocols and First Nations and Indigenous issues will be in my Indigenous Peoples and Repatriation section, which I know isn't up yet. That's the sort of thing that drew me to the topic in the first place so navigating it is taking me a bit more time, but it will definitely make up a significant portion of the page eventually, don't worry!

No idea why the ICA chose 1923, honestly. I'll see if I can find anything on it. Their document is two pages long so there isn't a lot to go on. I've switched back to bullet points. Would you mind taking a look at my page again and seeing what you think? I'm still unsure on bullet points vs. subsections so I'd really appreciate it!

Also, re: records in private hands--I don't know if you know much about the issues around the Iraqi Ba'ath Party records so this might all be old news to you, but it's super interesting and challenging and I definitely won't be able to capture the complexity of the issues and arguments around them in their entirety, but the article I'm mostly using for that section is one by Michelle Caswell that is worth checking out in a couple of weeks when you have free time again (and if you haven't already seen it):

Caswell, Michelle. “‘Thank You Very Much, Now Give Them Back’: Cultural Property and the Fight over the Iraqi Baath Party Records.” The American Archivist 74 (Spring/Summer 2011): 211-40.

I do like the bullet points, although you could always also make them bold or something for added emphasis. The 1923 thing is probably not that important - it just caught my eye as a pretty random date. I haven't seen the Caswell article before but one of the speakers at the 2014 ACA@UBC symposium did his talk about them (Bruce P Montgomery) so I was a bit familiar with the subject. I believe he's also written an article about it but I don't have a citation to hand. Very interesting indeed!

Yes, he has a couple of articles related to these records that I'm familiar with--one from 2001 and one from 2010. I didn't seem him speak at the symposium, but his insight into the issue as presented in the articles adds even more nuance to the discussion around repatriation because he argues that they really belong to the Kurdish people and not any incarnation of the government of Iraq. I'm not sure how much I will go into his arguments, but I was just going to outline the history of the debate before and now I think I will definitely add in stuff about current archival perspectives too. Thanks for bringing him up!

Hi Allison,

This is a great topic (you already noted it is similar to mine!) and I think you do a good job of covering a lot of the areas of such a broad subject. I wanted to suggest a few articles for you too, since our topics have some overlap (although I realize you might already have them):

Wareham, Evelyn. “‘Our Own Identity, Our Own Taonga, Our Own Self Coming Back’: Indigenous Voices in New Zealand Record-Keeping.” Archivaria 52 (Fall 2001): 26-46

Perry, Adele, "The Colonial Archive on Trial: Possession, Dispossession, and History in Delgamuukw v. British Columbia." in Antoinette Burton, Archives Stories [this one is a chapter in a book, but the full ebook is available online through the library]

McEwan, Cheryl. “Building a Postcolonial Archive? Gender, Collective Memory and Citizenship in Post-Apartheid South Africa.” Journal of South African Studies 26 (September 2003): 739-757. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3557440

Hope that could help you out!

hi, I was looking at potential sources for mine that I thought you might find helpful for the Canada section. MOA's guide to repatriation is interesting, especially when you compare it to the Royal BC Museum's. This is a great topic. http://moa.ubc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Resources-Repatriation-Guidelines.pdf http://royalbcmuseum.bc.ca/assets/Aboriginal_Material_Operating_Policy.pdf

Hi Shyla, I'm familiar with MOA's guidelines, but I'd never seen the RBC Museum ones. Thanks for passing them along. I appreciate it!

Hi Kelsey,

I had never seen the Delgamuukw article before! Thanks for passing it along. It looks really interesting and I'm always happy to get my hands on First Nations related archive stuff because there's so little of it. Very cool, especially with the archives from both sides of the trial coming to UBC RB&SC to live now. Have you got Wareham's "From Explorers to Evangelists" article from, I think, Archival Science? My memory of it isn't 100% right now, but it definitely talked a lot about colonial in the South Pacific.

I would love some feedback on the organization of the page. Do you think having the case studied nested like this works? Should the four points in the ICA section be broken into subsections instead of a bulleted list? Any suggestions for other pages I can link out to?

Hi Allison,

I think your organization looks good so far. I like the nesting of the case studies under the appropriate sections, I don't think it is necessary to put case studies in their own section. This way your case studies "illustrate" the discussion of the section above. I think the ICA points should be made subsections instead of being bulleted points, then each point can be easily navigated to as it will be delineated in the contents table. Also by making them subsections the points are given greater emphasis in the text.

Hannah

Hi Hannah, Thanks for the feedback! I will keep the case studies where they are. I also changed the ICA points to subsections and will see how I feel about that after leaving them that way for a while. The subsections just end up looking so short!

I know what you mean about short subsections, but I had a look just now and I think they look good, even though they are short. It is also great to see them in the contents. Because they are clearly distinct points that fit together under the ICA heading, I don't think they look incomplete or unsubstantial at all. Hannah