Regions: North Slave Region
| Principal Investigator: | Bourgeois, Rebecca Lorraine (2) |
| Licence Number: | 17051 |
| Organization: | University of Alberta |
| Licensed Year(s): |
2022
|
| Issued: | May 25, 2022 |
Objective(s): To reconceptualize archival systems within Tli?cho worldview and to create an actionable plan to renovate the Tli?cho archive to reflect the community’s efforts of cultural and linguistic resilience.
Project Description: This licence has been issued for the scientific research application No.5233. This community-driven work is conducted with the Tli?cho Government, who are currently in possession of stored materials and have expressed a collective wish to develop a welcoming space where these belongings can be experienced by the community, and where future repatriations can be held. The objectives of this research are: 1) To reconceptualize archival systems within Tli?cho worldview; 2) To create an actionable plan to renovate the Tli?cho archive to reflect the community’s efforts of cultural and linguistic resilience; 3) To generate recommendations for other Indigenous communities and existing archives/collections to reorient their holdings to have more active roles in their communities; and 4) To co-create policy and recommendations for repatriation that respect Indigenous Knowledge Systems. The methodological approach that the research team are taking weaves together multiple methods under a multi-strategy knowledge translation approach. Qualitative data will be collected through a range of qualitative and Indigenous research methods. Engagement is worked into our methodology through ceremony, which is open to all community members, and through outreach during the interview and archival process. Throughout, cultural protocol will be respected and reciprocated through honoraria, gifting, and ceremony. The objectives of this subproject will be achieved as follows and participant numbers are estimated as broad ranges to give a sense of approximate scope. The team will use collection walks, learning circles, and interviews to discuss archives within Tli?cho teachings and experience. Ensuring ongoing and informed consent, interviews will be semi-structured to allow participants to share only what they are comfortable with. Questions and prompts will be focused on the objectives and aimed at investigating ways that Indigenous knowledge can be better cared for through archives. The team will also hold workshops to co-create ideas for the new archive that will then be used as the starting point for planning the next steps for reorganizing the archive and for the language revitalization subproject. Elders, Traditional Knowledge Keepers, and community members (many of whose relatives’ images, recordings, or belongings are kept within the archive) will be invited to walk through the collection with the Principal Investigator (PI) and share stories about their connection to the belongings housed there and their hopes for the archive. These collection walks will be recorded, transcribed, and analyzed to pull out key findings and questions. Learning circles will invite Elders and Traditional Knowledge Keepers to share their knowledge about traditional ways of categorizing things, how to go about interacting with such belongings, and the historical and cultural meaning behind archives. These circles will be held both indoors and outdoors around a fire to promote sharing in a collective environment. Learning circles will group the individuals that previously participated in collection walks, as well as Knowledge Keepers and community members identified therein. These learning circles will be recorded, transcribed, and analyzed to pull out key findings and questions. The research team will conduct semi-structured interviews. These interviews will be held with the collection walk and learning circle participants to dive deeper into key learnings as well as Knowledge Keepers and community members that were identified in other tasks or by community research partners. These interviews will be recorded, transcribed, and analyzed to pull out key findings and questions. Workshops will be held by participants identified by the Tli?cho Government, likely including the participants from the collection walks, learning circles, and interviews well as additional representatives from the Tli?cho Government. Here the research team will partake in brainstorming and plan drafting exercises which will incorporate participant activities, such as crafting, to engage participants in both passive participation and direct creation, depending on their preference and capacity. These workshops will present the key findings generated during the other data collection tasks (collection walks, learning circles, and interviews), inviting participants to brainstorm solutions for the aims of the project that reflect the key findings relevant to the subject matter. The PI is working directly with the Tli?cho Government; therefore, the findings will be continually reported through work with the community research partners. The PI plan to present these results in stages to the community in the manner that the Tli?cho Government sees best fit, such as through community presentations, newsletters, etc. The fieldwork for this study will be conducted from June 1, 2022 to December 31, 2022
