Keeping cultures alive: archives and Indigenous cultural and intellectual property rights

Archives play an important role in the cultural survival of Indigenous Australians. The wave of colonisation has had such an impact on Indigenous communities and the transmission of culture that access to records, materials, photographs and films is, for Indigenous people, a key way of keeping culture. Indigenous cultural and intellectual property rights are Indigenous people’s rights to their heritage. Archival organisations and museums collect and preserve Indigenous people’s culture. In the past, this has been from an ethnographic eye, but the contemporary challenge is to work with Indigenous people to make the archives alive, to foster and promote Indigenous cultural knowledge and cultural expression, and innovation.     

Documentation: A Hard to Reach Place

Some educators experience difficulty documenting young children’s work in early childhood settings because of a limited understanding of the importance of documentation, what or how to document, and the effective use of documentation; limited resources (time, tools, and assistance); or predetermined curricular guidelines. Some teachers, especially inexperienced early years teachers, have trouble engaging with children and documenting simultaneously, revealing a crucial misunderstanding about the purpose of documenting. Teachers at Reggio Emilia-inspired schools throughout the United States use many forms of documentation to enhance the qualities of children’s experiences in preschool classrooms. This article addresses the dilemmas teachers face in implementing documentation in order to assist them as they move from standards-based teaching and teacher-determined content to a more constructivist approach to teaching. Ideas for using documentation shared by the authors will allow young children to construct their own knowledge and curiosity, making learning more meaningful to them and more visible to others.