photographic archive

Return: The Photographic

Archive and Technologies

of Indigenous Memory

Author: Jane Lydon [ show biography ]

DOI: 10.1080/17540763.2010.499610

Published in: Photographies, Volume 3, Issue 2

September 2010 , pages 173 - 187

Publication Frequency: 2 issues per year

Download PDF (~475 KB) View Related

Articles

To cite this Article: Lydon, Jane 'Return: The Photographic Archive and Technologiesof Indigenous Memory', Photographies, 3:2, 173 - 187

Abstract

This paper considers the intersection of Aboriginal traditions surrounding photographyand the use of new technologies as both a research tool and a community resource.Over recent decades Australian cultural institutions have radically altered theirmanagement of photographic archives in response to changing political andintellectual circumstances - especially Indigenous advocacy. A sense of moralobligation has become the arbiter of new cultural protocols that have moved farbeyond legal provisions for protecting intellectual property. Experiments with newdigital tools attempt to understand and balance the role of photographs of Aboriginalpeople within Indigenous and Western knowledge systems. However, culturalprotocols rely significantly upon representations of “remote” Aboriginal communities innorthern Australia that emphasize difference and reify practices that may in fact befluid, and overlap with Western values. In the aftermath of colonialism, photographsare important to Aboriginal communities, especially in southern Australia, not merelyas an extension of tradition, but also in the context of colonial dispossession and loss.As a form of Indigenous memory the photographic archive may address the exclusionsand dislocations of the recent past, recovering missing relatives and stories, andrevealing a history of photographic engagement between colonial photographers andIndigenous subjects.

Introduction

In 1992 Roslyn Poignant “repatriated” photographs produced by her husband AxelPoignant four decades earlier, to Indigenous descendants (Burarra, Nakk ra andKunib dji peoples) at Maningrida in Arnhem Land, northern Australia. She noted thatthe dominant theme of “almost every photo viewing session: [was] the sense in which

Return: The Photographic Archive and Technologies of Indigenous Me... http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/section?content=a926621842&full...

1 de 16 13/02/2011 01:58 p.m.

the photographs established continuities of self and families and made biographiesand genealogies visible” (74. See also Poignant and Poignant). Poignant explored howrelatives incorporated photographs into traditional kinship structures such asavoidance relationships - where men may not have any contact with their mothers-in-law, for example. Prohibitions upon naming the deceased for a lengthy mourningperiod were traditionally observed - and such restrictions were extended to viewingtheir photographic image. Poignant's nuanced analysis is one of many studies thathave explored the incorporation of photographs into Aboriginal social practices as anextension of Indigenous tradition (see also, for example, Mulvaney, Morphy, and Petch157). Such accounts have become very influential in shaping popular and “expert”views of Indigenous visual cultures. Here, however, I wish to draw attention to the waysin which colonial images have assumed new meanings in the context of colonialdispossession and loss. Photographs help to constitute technologies of Indigenousmemory through a range of practices that construct the past in the present, includingby revealing unknown ancestors lost during the displacements of colonialism, andsubstantiating Indigenous stories and experiences formerly hidden from view.

However, current legal and ethical frameworks that govern the management ofphotographic archives in Australian cultural institutions have been shaped byIndigenous demands for control over more traditional forms of cultural heritage. Theseforms are most obviously defined by exoticism - aspects of Indigenous culture that aremost clearly defined in terms of difference from mainstream values and practices. Thedevelopment of policies regarding photographs mirrors the higher profile movement torepatriate human remains and secret-sacred objects, as well as being shaped by thecampaign for recognition of Indigenous cultural and intellectual property. In thisdomain, mainstream ideas about photography rely significantly upon ethnographicstudies from “remote” Aboriginal communities that emphasize the incorporation of themedium into traditional social organization. Such assumptions foreground differenceand reify practices which may in fact be more fluid and overlap with Western values; insome cases they overlook important differences between Indigenous communities innorthern and southern Australia, and collude with essentializing notions of Indigenesas either traditionally “authentic” or altered and “inauthentic”.

In what follows I try to identify and emphasize the current role of the photographicarchive as a form of Indigenous memory that is recuperative, intersubjective andintercultural: that is, how such archives are potentially of use in helping to recoverfamily and stories lost through the dislocations of colonialism, so revealing a processof image making, and a history, that is interactive and cross-cultural. As Indigenousintellectual Marcia Langton argued fifteen years ago, “the problem” with analysis of thevisual representation of “Aborigines lies in the positioning of us as object, and theperson behind the camera as subject” (39). In contradistinction to a substantialliterature that defines colonial photography simply as the white photographer's view, Iargue for the importance of acknowledging how the camera served historically as amedium of interaction between white settlers and Indigenous peoples, shaping thesocial processes of identity formation and cultural exchange. Subsequently, colonialphotographs have now become a crucial technology of Indigenous memory - animportant means of producing and processing the past in the present. As I explorefurther, these photos help create memories that are shaped by the material andtechnological means available to reproduce, archive, and retrieve them: as Pierre Norafamously argued, “modern memory is above all, archival. It relies entirely upon themateriality of the trace, the immediacy of the recording, the visibility of the image” (13).

Legal and moral frameworks: the "white door-bitches"


2 de 16 13/02/2011 01:58 p.m.

Western law is grounded in a long-standing intellectual tradition that emphasizes theimportance of individual property and the rights of the creative individual, and so oftenclashes with Indigenous views about collective ownership and responsibility (e.g.Alpana). In Australia, copyright law protects the rights of the photographer. Generally,copyright in photographs lasts for the life of the creator plus 70 years, whilephotographers also have moral rights in relation to their work (Australian CopyrightCouncil). Control over one's image is not protected by copyright, although in somecases use of an individual's image may be covered under laws such as the TradePractices Act 1974, which may prevent uses such as displaying the image of awell-known person. In broad terms, the law bestows few rights upon the photographicsubject and assumes that the image itself is merely a representation, a sign thatstands in for and takes the place of something else (Mitchell).

However, the cultural protocols adopted by most Australian institutions have moved farbeyond legal provisions for protecting intellectual property, prompted by a widespreadsense of moral obligation and recognition of culturally specific views of photographicimagery (for an engrossing account of changing “image ethics” in northern Australiasee Peterson). These institutional processes, which are pan-Aboriginal in intent, stemfrom a mainstream awareness of the complexity and richness of traditional Aboriginalculture, best known through ethnographic research among the societies of CentralAustralia. Certain features of these societies have become symbolic of Aboriginalitymore generally, and have been reified within legal and institutional discourse, in aprocess of intercultural dialogue. Western observers have always considered these“remote” communities to be more authentic than those of the south-east, who sufferedinvasion and dispossession first and most profoundly. Such stereotypes have longbeen criticized for their restrictive effects upon Indigenous people, who are thereforeexpected to comply with expectations of authenticity (e.g. Beckett; Povinelli).

The process of institutional recognition has been spurred on by new digitaltechnologies and the implications of instant global access. However, in key respects itmirrors the process of repatriating human remains and secret-sacred cultural artefactsconsidered to be Indigenous cultural patrimony (ancestral property), whose historicalremoval was facilitated by a colonial regime, to Aboriginal source communities. Thegenesis of the repatriation movement in Australia may be understood in the context ofthe worldwide Indigenous political activism of the 1970s, as well as local requests fromparticular communities at this time. During the early 1980s Australian museumsbecame the target of vocal protests from Indigenous people demanding communityaccess to collections, the appropriate display of cultural objects, and training andemployment within the museum sector (Green and Gordon). Perhaps most famously,in 1983 Tasmanian Aboriginal woman Ros Langford argued that

The Issue is control. You seek to say that as scientists you have a right toobtain and study information of our culture. You seek to say that becauseyou are Australians you have a right to study and explore our heritagebecause it is a heritage to be shared by all Australians, white and black.From our point of view we say you have come as invaders, you have tried todestroy our culture, you have built your fortunes upon the lands and bodiesof our people and now, having said sorry, want a share in picking out thebones of what you regard as a dead past. We say that it is our past, ourculture and heritage, and forms part of our present life. As such it is ours tocontrol and it is ours to share on our terms. That is the Central Issue in thisdebate.


3 de 16 13/02/2011 01:58 p.m.

(2)

Repatriation is now vigorously pursued by Australian territory, state and federalgovernments and cultural institutions as matter of public policy, and all majorAustralian museums are required to maintain collaborative relationships with relevantAboriginal groups regarding the management of Aboriginal cultural heritage, and toreturn ancestral remains and secret-sacred objects on request.

Another important domain that has shaped the management of photograph collectionsis the campaign to develop legal protection for the reproduction and use of Indigenouscultural and intellectual property (ICIP). Cultural property is recognized to include awide range of cultural expressions as well as sites, artefacts, designs and knowledge.Indigenous claims for control are grounded in the often exploitative circumstances oftheir production, within a colonial context over which the Aboriginal subjects had littlecontrol, as well as in their important role in constituting Indigenous identity in thepresent. For many years Aboriginal people have expressed concerns aboutrepresentations of their culture, history and individuals without their permission: theydo not like the way such records were created and used in the past (for example, toargue that they were a dying race) and object to current uses for commercial gain -without consultation. With regard to photographs, transmission of images showingindividuals without consent is considered an infringement of privacy. Other conflictsinclude the emphasis placed by copyright law upon protection of the rights of theindividual artist, when by contrast many Indigenous clans have laws that are based oncommunal responsibility for cultural heritage. To address such issues, guides toIndigenous protocols advise seeking approval from the subject's family, acknowledgingwho the person was and where the image came from; Indigenous people themselvesare warned not to use “images of people that are not from their own particular mob orlanguage group, or people who have passed away” unless consent from familymembers can be obtained, or they can use images from their own communities (Janke30-32; Australia Council for the Arts 16-17).

In acknowledgement of Indigenous demands for control over their heritage andrepresentation, Australian Indigenous protocols emphasize the need for consultationby researchers using photographs (e.g. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Library

and Information Resources Network, Protocols for Libraries, Archives and Information

Services), while Australian cultural institutions have developed codes of ethics thatendorse the “repatriation” of photographs and Indigenous control of access forresearch and especially publication. For example, the Audiovisual Collection of theAustralian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS) providesan online Code of Ethics that states that

[T]he AIATSIS Act recognises the right of Indigenous communities to decidehow their knowledge is used. Such provisions are generally not provided for

by the Copyright Act 1968 [which] does not protect ideas, concepts, styles,techniques or information which is not recorded in a material form. Nordoes it protect people or their images.

(http://www.aiatsis.gov.au/ava/ethics.html)

Across Australia, many institutions have developed varying responses to thesechallenges: for example, the Museum Victoria policy for repatriating cultural property(“images” are covered by this term) states that “Indigenous property that is embodiedin films, images, manuscripts and sound recordings will normally be repatriated in theform of copies but this is subject to negotiation” (Museum Victoria 2). A related processis what the Koorie Heritage Trust terms “Cultural clearance”, which requires that “in


4 de 16 13/02/2011 01:58 p.m.

addition to copyright law and individual agreements with copyright owners, the Trustwill only supply material for publication following consultation with the relevant Koorieindividual/s” (Koorie Heritage Trust 13). By requiring consultation with Indigenouscommunities, such institutions aim to ensure that the images are made known to andshared with appropriate relatives and/or communities, as well as giving them ultimatecontrol over use.

In a sense, these Australian practices may be seen in the context of a globalmovement of “repatriation” or “visual repatriation”, terms used to denote the provisionof photographs to descendants of the subjects (e.g. Herle; Morton; David A. Smith;Brown and Peers). However, the accuracy of the designation “repatriation” with respectto photographs is often questioned by curators who point out that such materials havedifferent relations of ownership and origination with their subjects' Indigenousdescendants. Specifically, photographs were produced by the white photographer,rather than by Indigenous people themselves, and, as I have noted, Western law hassubordinated rights to control over a person's image to those of the photographer.These differences have implications for management policies: unlike the singular formof artefacts and bodies, for example, the photographic image is infinitely reproducible,making “possession” an ambiguous and dubious concept. Some suggest that therationale for such requests for return be “differently couched, not in terms of righting awrong” but rather in terms of acknowledging “a legitimate and legal ownership of thematerial in the first place as a basic right of Indigenous peoples” (Green and Gordon).

Two practices have become emblematic of respecting Aboriginal culture in Australia:obtaining permission from the descendants of identifiable individual subjects for theuse of photographs, and restricting access to images of deceased people. Restrictionsupon knowledge, in part to regulate a person's exposure to spiritual power, areespecially characteristic of the societies of Central Australia and the north-west (e.g.Chris Anderson). As anthropologist Eric Michaels explained in an influential accountover twenty years ago, such communities object to the unauthorized transmission ofsecret or restricted materials, the reproduction of a deceased person's body, image orvoice in the presence of his or her relatives, and invasions of privacy. Yet respondingto the experience of colonization, they also object to “rhetorical narrative devices thatisolate Aborigines and constitute them as exotic rather than contemporary peoples”(Michaels 1994 3). These cross-culturally understandable customs have becomeemblematic of Aboriginal culture in mainstream Australian society and, as a mark ofrespect, it has become standard to provide an introductory warning regarding imagesof the deceased for prospective viewers of books, websites or films.

Yet such practices sometimes have the further effect of reifying cultural difference, in across-cultural dialogue that may also enhance institutional authority. Ironically, it isoften non-Indigenous museum staff - sometimes termed the “white door-bitches” - whocontrol access to Indigenous resources. As anthropologist Sandra Pannell has argued,institutional practices of restricting access and preservation re-create a secret statusand prompt a “fantasy of the prohibited” in ways that re-affirm the idea that theseobjects are reified versions of Aboriginality, signifying inalienability, authenticity,singularity and primordiality, with the effect of conferring authenticity and a sense ofdifference upon museums. Such authenticity consists of a “strange tension betweenthe sacred and the profane” which is exemplified in the act of repatriation itself(108-22).

Digitization


5 de 16 13/02/2011 01:58 p.m.

Nowhere are these issues more pressing than in the rapid digitization of Indigenousintellectual property in the form of imagery and archives, as indicated by a growingliterature produced in recent years (e.g. Jane Anderson 2009; Nakata, Byrne, andNakata; Nakata et al. “Indigenous Digital Collections”; Ormond-Parker). Someinstitutions have responded by establishing Indigenous Knowledge Centres or digitalpoints of contact between communities and outsiders - such as the Ara Irititja archivalproject, developed in consultation with the Anangu of Central Australia, that identifies,copies and electronically records history and culture, offering access along such axesas gender, seniority and “sorrow” (mourning) (Jane Anderson 2005 34-35; Hughes andDallwitz), and the Galiwin'ku Indigenous Knowledge Centre, which records currentcultural practices as well as providing a place for the return of historical material to thecommunity (Gumbula). Ara Irititja is shifting from its original object-based database toa “mind-map” that accommodates myriad points of entry. Instead of focusing primarilyon keeping objects such as photographs, films and sound recordings safe forpreservation and access, the new program will present profiles for people, places,events and cosmological narratives that are organized according to non-linearprinciples, and searchable by visual and textual tools (Thorner). This shift echoes abroader acknowledgement within heritage practice of the importance of “livingexpressions” or intangible cultural heritage, to many non-Western societies. WhereWestern concepts of heritage value have been grounded in material objects andtraces, in recent decades there has been growing acknowledgement of the culturallydiverse practices, representations, expressions, knowledge, and skills that givemeaning to those objects within living traditions around the globe.

In Australia within the last few years, an astonishing number of projects have beenfunded to develop software systems for the digitization and storage of Indigenousheritage collections, including the newly established Aboriginal and Torres StraitIslander Data Archives at University of Technology Sydney; the “eMob” pilot projectundertaken by the Murray Lower Darling Rivers Indigenous Nations, which developedan online guide to four UK collections; and an “Indigenous Knowledge ManagementSystem”, developed for the Smithsonian Institute's National Museum of the AmericanIndian Cultural Resources Center (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Data Archive;Ormond-Parker; Hunter et al.). As Martin Nakata and Marcia Langton, Indigenousleaders in this field, have recently argued, “the path to developing clear and highstandards of practice in this area rests on building a strong foundation forunderstanding what informs the concerns of Indigenous people about the intersectionof our knowledge and cultural materials with library and archival systems” (3). To date,research suggests that Indigenous people greatly value all forms of knowledge thatinform them about their identity and history, and desire full and equal participation inarchive management; they wish to “challenge and limit the ongoing potency whicharchives carry in the lives of many Koorie people” (Russell et al.). One innovativeresponse is the new Koorie Archiving System, piloted by a collaboration betweenMonash University and the Public Records Office of Victoria in 2010. This project willcollate, preserve and make accessible records relating to Koorie communities, familiesand individuals from government, community and personal sources, but its majorinnovation will be to provide a space within which Indigenous people may easily createand add new context to the core collection of data, by providing a mechanism forannotations that interpret, correct, or provide context for information content sourcedfrom official records. Also in 2010 a new National Indigenous Knowledge CentreProject will commence under the direction of Professor Jackie Huggins of theUniversity of Queensland, aiming to establish the feasibility and specifications forbuilding a centralized, standard point of digital access. It looks as though over the nextdecade a greater understanding of the significance of photography to Indigenouspeople, allied to a national, centralized access framework, will revolutionize thisdomain.


6 de 16 13/02/2011 01:58 p.m.

Indigenous memory

There are few studies of current Indigenous (re)valuations of photography, although ahandful of analyses by Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal scholars has emerged (e.g. Aird;Macdonald; B. R. Smith) that demonstrate the distinctive ways in which the medium isdeployed within Indigenous social relations and histories. Such research that has beenconducted suggests that Aboriginal practices surrounding new media technologies,and particularly photographs, are fluid and diverse. Anthropologist Jennifer Deger, forexample, has recently described a generational shift among the Yol u people ofGapuwiyak, Arnhem Land, for whom images of the deceased have traditionally beendestroyed or concealed for a period because of their dangerous potency. Today,photographs of loved ones are often sought out by younger people as part of themourning process (Deger). Despite these important studies, there is little explicitdiscussion of what such material means to Aboriginal people today, especiallyparticular communities or individuals, in southern Australia, where invasion anddispossession began and had the most profound effects.

Enmeshed within Indigenous narratives, photographs may serve a range ofrecuperative purposes, confronting the sometimes degrading circumstances in whichthey were produced. According to some Indigenous scholars and archivists, such asDonna Oxenham, a Yamatji woman from the West Australian north-west coast, whendescendants look at seemingly distressing images such as photographs of Aboriginalprisoners, they see past the chains to their relatives recorded within the photograph,bringing those distant in space and time into the present, in a process that creates andextends identities and relationships. Donna says, for example,

To me it is important for the viewer … to understand that although theseatrocities - such as neck-chaining, slavery and murder - occurred andshould invoke … the full sense of disgust for our colonial past, it is also anavenue for Aboriginal people today to find images of their loved ones andancestors and to be able to place them into physical contexts … Whenresearching my own ancestral history [through photographs] I was able toexplain how our pasts, present and futures are intrinsically linked - so thatthey no longer remained in the past, but are a part of who we are today.

(Lydon, “Behold the Tears”; cf. Aird)

It is often argued that looking at images of suffering or of difficult pasts constitutes aninstrument of remembrance that is both an ethical act and a sign of cultural maturity

(Apel; Sontag, Regarding the Pain of Others 104). However, writers such as SusanSontag have also questioned the power of photographs to facilitate historicalunderstanding, arguing instead that they take the place of, and so obscure, thememory of the event itself, being “not so much an instrument of memory as an

invention of it or a replacement” (Sontag On Photography 165). Given that theperpetuation of memories necessitates the task of continual renewal, “the problem isnot that people remember through photographs, but that they remember only thephotographs. This remembering through photographs eclipses other forms of

understanding, and remembering” (On Photography 79-80). Sontag contrasted visualimagery with narratives, which, she argued, more effectively facilitated historicalunderstanding.

However, in practice, within Aboriginal communities, photographs assume meaning asthey are enmeshed in stories and social relationships, most notably structured


7 de 16 13/02/2011 01:58 p.m.

according to genealogies and memories. As Elizabeth Edwards has recently arguedwith reference to a range of Australian examples, photographs are not “merely visual”but are social objects that derive meaning from their material and sensory uses: sheargues that “it is the fusion and performative interaction of image and materiality thatgives a sensory and embodied access to photographs” (27). Such uses have becomethe focus of attention to the photographic image as a social actor, rather than merely asign, as scholars ask what photographs do or embody rather than what they mean(e.g. Geismar). Such practices are typical of the Wurundjeri and Taungerong people ofsouthern Victoria (members of the Kulin Nation) whose ancestors lived at CoranderrkAboriginal Station during the second half of the nineteenth century. Coranderrk wasthe closest reserve to Melbourne and became the site of thousands of encountersbetween white photographers and the Indigenous community. It was known then, asnow, for the political activism of its residents, and remains a key site in Aboriginalhistories.

Today many Wurundjeri people, the traditional owners of the Melbourne region, usethe photographs to assert a kin-based identity, to record and strengthen familyrelationships. At a personal, individual level descendants may now define themselvesintersubjectively through particular biographies, connections to other family members,and shared histories and values. These intersubjective activities are generated throughviewing photographs that were made for very different purposes. For example,

Wurundjeri Elder Jessie Hunter (see figure 1), who passed away in 2004, lined herhome with family portraits that served to personify her rich family memories. Many ofthese images were produced at Coranderrk for official purposes rather than as familymementoes or portraits, yet for her their genealogical and personal meanings wereparamount. Jessie had multiple copies of some portraits, and gave them to relativesand friends as gifts, a kind of family currency exchanged to flesh out family history,and cement ties between family members. For Wurundjeri people such as Jessie, theimages trigger stories, and give people a sense of connectedness to each other andthe past. As Gaynor Macdonald argues of the Wiradjuri people of New South Wales,“

Photos of kin link one to ancestors and to one's children's children whenmyth and history cannot … The void which is the past devoid of myth andhistory is reformed and given substance through photographs.Photographs have the unique capacity - one not shared by written history -of verifying a past which might otherwise remain unknown. The photo canthus counter the non-writing of the past, the secret and silent histories, andthe past distorted by imperial histories” and “validate a history ofengagement, of involvement and of ancestry in place”.

(239)


8 de 16 13/02/2011 01:58 p.m.

FIGURE 1. Wurundjeri Elder JessieHunter, holding portraits of her mother and grandmother, Martha Nevin and JemimaBurns Wandin, 2000. Photograph by Jane Lydon.

Where many of Coranderrk's residents were moved around the state, visual evidenceof their life on the station has become very valuable to descendants. Despitegovernment policies that expelled supposedly “half-caste” Aboriginal people fromreserves to make their way without support within mainstream society, many chose toremain on traditional country, near family. Such links have gained fresh importance inthe context of Native Title and other forms of legal recognition, requiring demonstrationof group affiliation and continuous connections to land. Acutely aware of this history ofdispossession and expulsion, Wurundjeri elder Bill Nicholson Senior, for example,speaks of the images that show his forebears working and living at Coranderrk as

“factual proof, we are there, on the land” (see figure 2). Standing at Coranderrk in2000, he oriented himself within the landscape according to a nineteenth-centuryphotographic panorama, pointing out landmarks that still survive, like Bill himself, ontraditional country. In this way photographs play a part in establishing Aboriginalidentity and proving the continuous relationship of a definable group of people to aparticular area. Ironically, where blood-line was used in the nineteenth century againstAboriginal people, to define them as either “full-blood” or inauthentic “half-caste”, andused to force the latter from their homes, today it is used as a source of Aboriginal


9 de 16 13/02/2011 01:58 p.m.

authority.

FIGURE 2. Wurundjeri Elder Bill Nicholson Senior, at Coranderrk, 2000. Photographby Jane Lydon.

Descendants of the Wurundjeri claim rights to ownership and control of their heritagethrough descent from known Wurundjeri ancestors - and especially Barak and hissister Boraat - proved by genealogies and photographs. For example, Murrundindigives cultural performances at the Healesville Wildlife Sanctuary. He always explainshis own direct descent from Boraat. As he talks about Boraat, Barak and other familymembers, Murrundindi points to each person's photographic portrait, mounted in adisplay showing five generations. His brother Ian Hunter, who has blue eyes and paleskin, is often asked, “Are you a real Aborigine?” and Ian states that “with the use of thephotographs I can then explain how the generations of the Indigenous peoples ofMelbourne changed in appearance … people can appreciate that this is how the line

of Aboriginal people look like they are today” (Lydon, Eye Contact 222-25). AsMacdonald shows, photographs establish the owner's world of social relatedness,meaning and history, exploring the “meanings derived from the different cultural andhistorical context in which these photos have been owned and treasured” (226). As forthe Wiradjuri of western NSW, old Wurundjeri photographs can extend socialitiesacross space and time; by bringing those distant in time and space into the present,they establish the owner's world of social relatedness, identity and cultural legitimacy.In these intersubjective processes of defining self and other, personal and familyhistories, photographs transcend the distancing, often exploitative purposes of theirmakers.

Such uses also have broader historiographical implications, suggesting their utility indestabilizing “structures of forgetting” that excised Aboriginal people from the nationalstory. Historian Maria Nugent has demonstrated how local Aboriginal people'shistorical storytelling about Captain Cook's arrival at Botany Bay have placedAboriginal pasts firmly in the present - overturning non-Indigenous historians' failure toacknowledge their role, and aiming “to impress a sense of historical continuity and oftemporal depth” (56). Nugent suggests that oral histories constitute a mode ofstorytelling that enables Aboriginal people to represent themselves not only as thesubjects of history but also as the makers of it too, ensuring that local Aboriginalhistory is “claimed and championed by present-day Aborigines connected with thesame general locality” (57). Where Aboriginal people were constructed by colonists asahistorical, or a people who had lost culture, and were omitted from the national story,


10 de 16 13/02/2011 01:58 p.m.

such images serve as an alternative source of evidence and stories, and confirm thetruth of a history otherwise known only through family stories. In south-eastern orsettled Australia, where colonization and dispossession began first and had the mostdamaging effects, photography may serve as an important means of making history, inan intersubjective process that has produced important Indigenous narratives,grounded in place, that work to counter white amnesia.

Conclusion

Archives of colonial photography have also come to be used publicly and collectivelyby Victoria's Koori community, in exhibitions, television documentary and art. Colonialinstitutions such as the State Library of Victoria have only recently begun to adoptinitiatives designed to “repatriate” its photographic holdings with descendantcommunities, in a history that exemplifies the tremendous shift that has taken placewithin Australian cultural institutions regarding Indigenous cultural property (seeBriggs, Lydon, and Say). Over the last two decades the Library has seen thesubversive re-working of its collection by a range of Aboriginal artists, perhaps most

famously Leah King-Smith's 1990 photographic series Patterns of Connection.Originally commissioned by the Library to produce a book that would draw upon thePicture Collection, King-Smith instead decided to overlay nineteenth-century imageswith her own landscape views, with the intention of changing perceptions ofIndigenous relationships to country. In the resulting images, the residents of Victoria'sAboriginal reserves such as Coranderrk and Ramahyuck emerge from the shadowysetting as ghosts that haunt the landscape, underlining a traditional, spiritualrelationship with the land, and expressing “a contemporary nostalgia for spiritual roots”(Marsh 116; see also Downer).

Leigh Raiford has recently argued that African-American engagements withphotography provide a site of “critical black memory”, and “demonstrate the necessityof reinterpreting the black body as well as the assertion of themselves as viewingsubjects and not merely visual objects” (114). In the same way, photographs ofIndigenous Australians have been used to claim a specific local identity, throughbloodline and historical experience, and to serve an important role in teaching childrenand the general public about Aboriginal history and culture. Family relations are in partdefined by the exchange of photographs. In the creative re-working of the nineteenth-century archive we can see continuities with the past as well as newly emerged publicideas and practices, stemming from colonialism and the cross-cultural encounter.Creating a tangible, performative link between past and present, ancestors anddescendants, Indigenous photographic practices challenge colonial histories, reifieddefinitions of Aboriginality, and assert survival in the present.

Acknowledgements

This paper originated in a presentation to the day symposium “Photography, Archiveand Memory”, at the Centre for Research in Film and Audio Visual Cultures,Roehampton University, London, in June 2009, and I wish to thank the organizers andparticularly Julia Peck for their interest. I also thank Bill Nicholson Senior forpermission to reproduce his photograph, and Ian Hunter for permission to reproducethat of his mother Jessie Hunter.

Works cited


11 de 16 13/02/2011 01:58 p.m.

1. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Data Archive (2009) Introducing the

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Data Archive (ATSIDA). Press release UTS ,Sydney

2. Aird, Michael (2001) Brisbane Blacks Keeaira , Southport, QLD3. Alpana, Roy (2008) Copyright: A Colonial Doctrine in a Postcolonial Age.

Copyright Reporter: Journal of the Copyright Society of Australia 26.4 , pp.112-134.

4. Chris, Anderson (ed) (1995) Politics of the Secret U of Sydney , Sydney —Oceania Monograph 45

5. Anderson, Jane (2005) Access and Control of Indigenous Knowledge in

Libraries and Archives: Ownership and Future Use American Library Associationand MacArthur Foundation, Columbia U , New York

6. Anderson, Jane (2009) Law, Knowledge Culture: The Production of Indigenous

Knowledge in Intellectual Property Law Elgar , Cheltenham

7. Apel, Dora (2004) Imagery of Lynching: Black Men, White Women, and the

Mob Rutgers UP , New Brunswick, NJ

8. Australia Council for the Arts (2007) Protocols for Producing Indigenous

Australian Media Arts Australia Council for the Arts , Sydney

9. http://www.copyright.org.au/ — Australian Copyright Council. Jan. 2006.Information Sheet G11: Photographers and Copyright

10. Jeremy, Beckett (ed) (1994) Past and Present: The Construction of

Aboriginality Aboriginal Studies Press , Canberra11. Briggs, Maxine , Jane, Lydon and Madeleine, Say Russell, L. (ed) (2010)

Collaborating: Photographs of Koories in the State Library of Victoria. Indigenous

Victorians: repressed, resourceful and respected, Special issue of the La Trobe

Journal 85 , pp. 106-124.12. Brown, Alison and Laura with members of the Kainai Nation, Peers (2006)

“Pictures Bring Us Messages”/Sinaakssiiksi aohtsimaahpihkookiyaawa:

Photographs and Histories from the Kainai Nation U of Toronto P , Toronto

13. Deger, Jennifer (2006) Shimmering Screens: Making Media in an Aboriginal

Community U of Minnesota P , Minneapolis14. Downer, Christine (1992) Pictures in Victoria - Images as Records in the La

Trobe Picture Collection. La Trobe Journal 50 , pp. 12-19.

15. Edwards, E. (2006) Photographs and the Sound of History. Visual

Anthropology Review 21.1-2 , pp. 27-46.16. Geismar, Haidy (2009) The Photograph and the Malanggan: Rethinking

Images on Malakula, Vanuatu. Australian Journal of Anthropology 20.1 , pp.

48-73. [ crossref ]17. Green, Michael and Phil, Gordon Lydon, Jane and Rizvi, Uzma (eds) (2010)

World Archaeological Congress, LeftCoast Press Repatriation: Australian

Perspectives18. Gumbula, J. N. Nakata, Martin and Langton, Marcia (eds) (2007) Exploringthe Gupapuynga Legacy: Strategies for Developing the Galiwin'ku Indigenous

Knowledge Centre. Australian Indigenous Knowledge and Libraries pp. 25-28. Uof Technology P , Sydney19. Herle, Anita Edwards, Elizabeth and Morton, Christopher (eds) (2009) JohnLayard long Malekula 1914-1915: The Potency of Field Photography.

Photography, Anthropology and History: Expanding the Frame pp. 241-263.Ashgate , Farnham20. Hughes, M. and John, Dallwitz Dyson, Laurel , Hendriks, Max and Grant,Stephen (eds) (2007) Ara Iritja: Towards Culturally Appropriate Best Practice in


12 de 16 13/02/2011 01:58 p.m.

Remote Indigenous Australia. Information Technology and Indigenous People pp.146-158. Information Science , Hershey, PA

21. http://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:929 — Hunter, J., R. Schroeter, B.Koopman, and M. Henderson. “Using the Semantic Grid to Build Bridges

between Museums and Indigenous Communities.” Proceedings of GGF11 -

Semantic Grid Applications Workshop, Honolulu, 10 June 2004.

22. Janke, Terri (1998) Our Culture, Our Future. Report on Australian Indigenous

Cultural and Intellectual Property Rights Australian Institute of Aboriginal andTorres Strait Islander Studies and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait IslanderCommission , Canberra

23. Koorie Heritage Trust (2009) Collections Policy and Procedures ManualKoorie Heritage Trust , Melbourne

24. Langford, Roslyn (1983) Our Heritage - Your Playground. Australian

Archaeology 16 , pp. 1-6.25. Langton, M. (1993) Well, I Heard it on the Radio and I Saw it on the

Television …. Essay for the Australian Film Commission on the politics and

aesthetics of filmmaking by and about Aboriginal people and things AustralianFilm Commission , North Sydney

26. Lydon, Jane Behold the Tears: Photography as Colonial Witness. History of

Photography 34:3

27. Lydon, Jane (2005) Eye Contact: Photographing Indigenous Australians DukeUP , Durham, NC28. Macdonald, Gaynor (2003) Photos in Wiradjuri Biscuit Tins: Negotiating

Relatedness and Validating Colonial Histories. Oceania 73.4 , pp. 225-242.29. Marsh, Anne (1999) Leah King-Smith and the Nineteenth-century Archive.

History of Photography 23.2 , pp. 114-117.

30. Michaels, Eric (1986) The Aboriginal Invention of Television AustralianInstitute of Aboriginal Studies , Canberra31. Michaels, Eric (1994) A Primer of Restrictions on Picture-taking in Traditional

Areas of Aboriginal Australia. Bad Aboriginal Art: Tradition, Media, and

Technological Horizons pp. 1-19. Allen , Sydney

32. Mitchell, W. J. T. (2005) Picture Theory U of Chicago P , Chicago33. Morton, Christopher Edwards, Elizabeth and Morton, Christopher (eds)(2009) The Initiation of Kamanga: Visuality and Textuality in Evans-Pritchard's

Zande Ethnography. Photography, Anthropology and History: Expanding the

Frame pp. 119-142. Ashgate , Farnham

34. John, Mulvaney , Morphy, Howard and Petch, Alison (eds) (1997) “My dear

Spencer”: The letters of F.J. Gillen to Baldwin Spencer Hyland House , SouthMelbourne

35. Museum Victoria Policy Statement (31 Mar 2009) Repatriation of Aboriginal

and Torres Strait Islander Cultural Property36. Nakata, Martin , Alex, Byrne and Vicky, Nakata (2005) Libraries, IndigenousAustralians and a Developing Protocols Strategy for the Library and Information

Sector. Australian Academic & Research Libraries 36.2 , pp. 195-210.

37. Martin, Nakata and Langton, Marcia (eds) (2007) Australian Indigenous

Knowledge and Libraries U of Technology P , Sydney38. Nakata, Martin , Vicky, Nakata , Gabrielle, Gardiner , Jill, McKeough , Alex,Byrne and Jason, Gibson (2008) Indigenous Digital Collections: An Early Look at

the Organisation and Culture Interface. Australian Academic and Research

Libraries 39.4 , pp. 223-236.

39. Nora, Pierre (Spring 1989) Between Memory and History:. Representations 26, pp. 7-24.40. Nugent, Maria Hamilton, Paula and Shopes, L. (eds) (2008) Mapping


13 de 16 13/02/2011 01:58 p.m.

Memories: Oral History for Aboriginal Cultural Heritage in Australia. Oral History

and Public Memory pp. 47-63. Temple UP , Philadelphia42. Ormond-Parker, Lyndon Anderson, Jaynie (ed) Indigenous Material Culture

in the Digital Age. Crossing Cultures: Conflict, Migration and Convergence pp.812-816. Miegunyah , Melbourne43. Pannell, Sandra Anderson, Christopher (ed) (1995) The Cool Memories of

Tjurunga: A Symbolic History of Collecting, Authenticity and the Sacred. Politics

of the Secret pp. 108-122. U of Sydney , Sydney — Oceania Monograph 4544. Peterson, Nicholas Pinney, Christopher and Peterson, Nicolas (eds) (2003)The Changing Photographic Contract: Aborigines and Image Ethics.

Photography's Other Histories pp. 119-145. Duke UP , Durham, NC

45. Poignant, Axel and Roslyn, Poignant (1996) Encounter at NagalarrambaNational Library of Australia , Canberra46. Poignant, Roslyn (1992) Wurdayak/Baman (Life History) Photo Collection:Report on the Setting up of a Life History Photo Collection at the Djomi Museum,

Maningrida. Australian Aboriginal Studies 2 , pp. 71-77.

47. Povinelli, Elizabeth (2002) The Cunning of Recognition Duke UP , Durham,NC48. Raiford, Leigh (Dec 2009) Photography and the Practices of Critical Black

Memory. History and Theory 48 , pp. 112-129. [ crossref ]

49. http://infotech.monash.edu/research/centres/cosi/projects/trust/final-

report/ — Russell, Lynette, Sue McKemmish, Don Schauder, Kirsty Williamson,

and Graeme Johanson. Final Report of the Trust and Technology Research

Project. Monash University, Public Record Office of Victoria, Koorie HeritageTrust, Victorian Koorie Records Taskforce and Australian Society of ArchivistsIndigenous Issues Special Interest Group, 2009.50. Smith, B. R. (2003) Images, Selves, and the Visual Record: Photography and

Ethnographic Complexity in Central Cape York Peninsula. Social Analysis

(Adelaide) 47.3 , pp. 8-26. [ crossref ]

51. http://www.criticalimprov.com/index.php/perj/article/view/330 — Smith,David A. “From Nunavut to Micronesia: Feedback and Description, Visual

Repatriation and Online Photographs of Indigenous Peoples.” Partnership: The

Canadian Journal of Library and Information Practice and Research 3.1 (2008).

52. Sontag, Susan (1978) On Photography Penguin , London

53. Sontag, Susan (2003) Regarding the Pain of Others Farrar , New York54. Thorner, Sabra Imagining an Indigital Interface: Aa Irititja Indigenizes the

Technologies of Knowledge Management. Collections — in press

List of Figures


14 de 16 13/02/2011 01:58 p.m.

FIGURE 1. Wurundjeri Elder JessieHunter, holding portraits of her mother and grandmother, Martha Nevin and JemimaBurns Wandin, 2000. Photograph by Jane Lydon.

FIGURE 2.Wurundjeri Elder Bill Nicholson Senior, at Coranderrk, 2000. Photograph by JaneLydon.

Bookmark with:

CiteULike

Del.icio.us


15 de 16 13/02/2011 01:58 p.m.

BibSonomy

Connotea

More bookmarks


16 de 16 13/02/2011 01:58 p.m.

photographic archive

Documents

Transcript of photographic archive