Speaking of Us, About Us and for Us: Telling Stories About Aboriginal Peoples from the Archives
[2016] 3 Law & History
30 Pages Posted: 22 Dec 2019
Date Written: September 9, 2016
Abstract
This article reflects on three failed efforts to assist Aboriginal people to disrupt the stories that the state and non-Indigenous people had fabricated about their lives. It encompasses discussion of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, the National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from their Families (the Stolen Generations) and an attempt to reclaim a personal diary and sketchbooks toured as part of a retrospective exhibition about Aboriginal artist Trevor Nickolls. The article shows how institutional politics, curatorial practices and intellectual property concepts combine to free up information flows and authorise others to speak of, about and for Aboriginal peoples. At a time when our public institutions are seeking greater participation by Aboriginal people in curating collections, and historians and academics are very interested in using archival material, there needs to be a wider discussion about the potential harms that can arise from opening up archival access.
Keywords: Truth Commissions, cultural appropriation, colonialism, stolen generations, archives, copyright, Indigenous rights
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