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About the Project

 

The research journey

   
       
 

December 2005: Halfway Workshopping

       
 

An overview of IKRMNA research at December 2005

• Our research seeks to come up with a series of general, robust, and flexible solutions for using digitising technologies in a variety Indigenous knowledge management scenarios involving natural and cultural resource management and inter-generational transmission of knowledge.

• We examine technical, social, political, epistemological and ontological aspects of the processes of generating and utilising the solutions.

• Our research products so far fall into two groups:

(1) Working with pre-existing collections. We have developed digital display/storage solutions for Indigenous users of digitising technologies working in quite varied contexts.

(2) Products which are developed as concepts. For these we are in the process either of developing a proof of concept, or developing an example of the product. These three products are designed to allow indigenous people to variously configure, display, manage, and generate small collections of Indigenous digital objects which they have developed for themselves for their own purposes.


Group One Research Products:

• We have completed two databases/displays, and are close to completion of a third.

• These products engage two quite different display principles and technologies.

• Our Indigenous co-researchers are just beginning to use these products. We are following the 'lives' of these small databases in Indigenous contexts, watching the forms of their participation.

A. Small Collections: DVD Database-displays

* Gulumerrgin DVD

An exhibit of a collection of digital objects managed by a Larrakia family arranged on a digital map of their land. Assembled using DVD Studio Pro . Some of the digital objects were old family photos, others (sound files) were produced for the project. The display was assembled at the request of and with the co-operation of Lorraine Williams and Donna Jackson (both from Darwin), working to their specifications. These women belong to a small group which is ultimately part of a much wider group which has suffered nearly two hundred years of dispossession and life at the cutting edge of black-white relations in the NT. Their identity as it is produced in this object is marked by both inclusion and exclusion. The women have specified that the DVD is not open for the public, and it needs to be approved by elders. The display is a hard-wired application of DVD Studio Pro that can be burned on DVD disks.

The display uses photo maps as a background, oscillating satellite and topographical versions of a section of the land owned by this group. Place names are inscribed on the map base. Clicking on a place name generates a spoken version of the name. In some places a slide show is also revealed which can be played in automatic or manual modes.

Recognising the extremely delicate, and highly labile socio-political context in which this display must work there is currently only one copy of this experimental display of a small collection of Indigenous digital objects. At a distance and with an appropriate demeanour, we will maintain an interest in its life over the next few years.

http://www.cdu.edu.au/centres/ik/db_larrakia.html

* 'East of Arafura' DVD exhibit.

An exhibit of a collection of digital movies commissioned by a Yolngu landowner. Assembled by Bryce using iDVD. This is an experimental display of a pre-existing collection of Indigenous video material. The videos were made at the behest of a senior man, Mangay, a land owner, in the area east of the Arafura swamp. The videos record the landowner in 12 different places telling stories in Yolngu matha about land, people and connections. The images often show him holding and gesturing towards photographs of old people from his fathers generation obtained from archival sources like the Donald Thomson collection. The recordings were made by his school teacher-friend, John Greatorex, a long time resident in a neighbouring community. John who now teaches Yolngu matha at CDU contributed to generating this digitised display.

The primary audience for the videos is Yolngu men, women and children from Mangay's own clan and other closely related clans, and people from further afield who are ignorant of the history and ownership of the area. This knowledgeable man was concerned about the lack of detailed 'place knowledge' amongst his kin and compatriots. The 'threat' of a huge gas pipeline passing through the area compelled him to take action. His kinsmen and co-landowners would soon be involved in detailed and crucial negotiations with the gas pipeline company. They needed their understandings extended and their memories refreshed. Digitising the videos and making a digitised DVD display enhances his project, increasing his capacity to entertain and educate his intended audience. He also intends that his authoritative account of country can be used as evidence in negotiations with the gas-pipeline company.

The display was assembled in iDVD and is burnt onto DVD disks for distribution.    The background is a satellite photo map of the Arafura area, with the places that feature as subjects indicated only with asterisks coloured yellow, set amongst the green features of the land--the bright green of the swamp being the dominant element in the map. There is no written text in the display, and no English spoken. However the videos have been both transcribed and translated. In addition to the video material, now playable on DVD players/TV sets, text files can also be burnt onto the disk to be played on computers. In the original version, the footage was played on a video, and Mangay asked John to record an English translation on audiotape. Mangay played the video and the audio translation at the same time, to people who were asking about some mining issue (and who didn't speak a Yolngu language). Mangy has recently asked for an English version of the DVD. We will produce a version with English voice over in the near future.

The 'life' of this open display will be closely monitored over the next months and years.

http://www.cdu.edu.au/centres/ik/db_mangay.html

In subsequentdevelopments, an English simultaneous translation was added and an academic paper has been written detailing the life of the project. (links]

B: Larger Collections On-line Displays

* Garma Cultural Studies Institute on-line database

The data-base structure was obtained from DSTC. Their product was modified to allow full searchability of data and metadata, effectively collapsing data and metadata to one field. We have accordingly modifed the upload to allow only one field. (see http://www.cdu.edu.au/centres/ik/pdf/WordsOntologiesAbDB.pdf for a discussion of this strategy.) Some specifications for a friendly text search can be found at http://www.cdu.edu.au/centres/ik/db_TAMI.html

As part of our commitment to help the Garma Cultural Studies Institute we have been collecting stories about Yolngu life, language and culture from Yolngu teachers at the annual Garma festival. These are usually in the form of video files, or photos and text. Often the videos have been translated, and some of them have English subtitles. The GCSI database subproject is an attempt to negotiate Yolngu friendly and useful ways to manage these representations for use in GCSI teaching contexts.

For example, Mandawuy, Witiyana and Raymattja from the GCSI are holding cultural awareness workshops for the hundreds of new mine workers in the expanded bauxite mining and processing operation on the nearby Gove peninsula. Raymattja has asked for help with digital resources for the sessions. We will be supporting Raymattja in selecting objects available in the GCSI on-line database (housed on a CDU server) and in arranging them for use. We see this solution as better than a simple powerpoint presentation because it means that the resources can be identified and configured in the contexts of classroom discussion. http://www.cdu.edu.au/centres/ik/db_garma.html


Group Two Generic Research products: These three products are designed for Indigenous people to variously configure, display, manage, and generate small collections of Indigenous digital objects.

* Generic Interactive Map Application (GIMA)

A display/configuration solution for map-based exhibition of collections of Indigenous Digital Objects. This generic solution will utilize the socio-technical understandings that we accumulated during the development work of assembling the Gulumerrgin and East of Arafura DVDs.

http://www.cdu.edu.au/centres/ik/db_flashmap.html

http://www.cdu.edu.au/centres/ik/db_kupalwanamyu.html

* Generic Ecological Knowledge Organiser (GEKO)

This concept, inspired by Donna Jackson, uses proprietary software in a cross-platform application. It will be proved in making a botanical and zoological memory and discussion tool, initially to support the ethnobiology work of one of the project partners DIPE.

 

* TAMI and the TAMI epoc and its possible further development

TAMI is a way of organising displays of small collections of Indigenous digital objects. The principle of organisation of the display, is prefigured only by the content of the items stored as T ext, A udio, M ovie, or I mage files. TAMI embeds multiple flexibilities. First it is flexible with respect to assembling collections of digital objects. It fits with whatever gadgets and capacities are to hand.    Secondly TAMI is flexible in the processes of searching. It allows visual scanning (ie without recourse to metadata) and fuzzy text searches of collected items to select for display. The visual scanning mode is useful for people with high skill levels of visual acuity. It is a preferred search mode for many Indigenous users. Fuzzy text search mechanisms attend to difficulties and instabilities in spellings of many words in Aboriginal languages. Thirdly, TAMI is flexible with respect to the processes of generating displays. Its background can be map or not-map based. Linking (and separating) of files of images (moving and/or still), texts (written and/or spoken) and sound (speech and/or music) can be achieved seamlessly.

The diverse contexts of Indigenous use of digitising technologies have varied social, political, religious, aesthetic, ontic and epistemic characteristics. The multiple flexibilities of TAMI effectively allow the richness and diversity of these contexts to be mirrored in digital content. They also allow the diverse content of the digital objects to determine principles of organisation of displays generated with these digital objects, enacting to some extent its 'ontology'.

Displays devised using TAMI can find recreational/re-creational uses in Aboriginal families as stories around the campfire are often replaced by stories around the television.    Indigenous people employed as teachers, rangers, health workers etc. often use displays incorporating playful, transgressive, artistic and innovative responses as part of the ongoing processes of rebuilding physical and cultural worlds according to ancient imperative. Displays to evidence claims of a serious nature over knowledge property, land property, aesthetic, or religious issues etc. are also possible uses. http://www.cdu.edu.au/centres/ik/db_TAMI.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Gulumerrgin DVD main menu


"The Gulumerrgin Database is something that we've been working on and it's basically trying to get all the stuff that we have out there and arranging it in some way so that people will be able to use that information, so that young people, different groups of people, families, big groups of people, stuff for the public. So the Gulumerrgin Database is something that I've just started working on, and we're using all this new computer technology and stuff and having a fantastic time."


Lorraine Williams


 


Mangay DVD map menu

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Interactive map


Generic Ecological Knowledge Organiser


Donna Jackson in relation to GEKO at the seminar in Dec 04

"Yes, just very quickly. Considering that it's all for the Rangers to be able to do their own ethnobiology without needing biologists to go out there. The main thing I think we need is for communities to record that stuff. A format that makes sense to everyone is the scientific names and photos of the animals and plants so if we could come up with some sort of DVD or CD that has that information on a blank screen and people can go in and add information as they need to without the need for scientists being there."

 

 

 

 


TAMI interface concept

 

 

 

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