Collaborative Research: Digital Archives and Indigenous Afterlives of Scientific Objects

合作研究：数字档案和科学物品的本土遗骸

• 批准号: 2147284
• 负责人: Rosanna Dent
• 金额: $ 30.21万
• 依托单位: New Jersey Institute of Technology
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2022-05-01 至 2025-04-30
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2147284&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; Digital; Archives; Indigenous

At a moment when universities, museums, and archives are grappling with questions of how to responsibly manage and care for scientific collections created under unequal power dynamics, this project explores the role of digital access in understanding these histories, redressing associated harms, and envisioning new and more equitable forms of research for groups that have been marginalized. Through the collaborative construction of a digital archive, this project responds to requests from Indigenous communities for the return of scientific materials such as photographs, audio recordings, and publications that document their lives and communities. It explores the potential of digital infrastructures to enable communities’ control of materials that document them, according to their norms for sharing and protecting knowledge. Analysis of the ways participants experience and see themselves in relation to scientific research will help future researchers better respond to subjects’ and communities’ priorities. This project will provide resources, training, and a model for undergraduate and graduate students to pursue research in the social and natural sciences. It will contribute to broader initiatives that engage scientists, data repositories, and archival materials to democratize access and engagement in scholarly work while maintaining respect for Indigenous and local knowledge systems.Drawing on methodological insights from Indigenous studies that prioritize reciprocal foundations of knowledge, this project will develop a methodology to effectively examine asymmetries in knowledge production, helping scholars learn how to incorporate reciprocity and care into their work. Using data collected through community consultation, semi-structured interviews, and ethnography of the construction and use of the digital archive, this research will offer theoretical insights into: (1) The potentials and pitfalls of re-using already-collected materials; (2) How approaches to archives and collections that reconfigure power dynamics and permit community-based reinterpretation can result in new knowledge about history and science; (3) How digital returns of scientific materials can contribute to community-defined research and inform human sciences research with Indigenous communities more broadly. In addition to science and technology studies scholars and historians of science, this project will be of interest to librarians, archivists, museum professionals, and others dedicated to privacy and justice in the collection and use of human data. Findings will inform research design across a wide range of fields in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences, as well as policy and practice related to human subject’s research regulation.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

当大学、博物馆和档案馆都在努力解决如何负责任地管理和保护在不平等的权力动态下产生的科学藏品的问题时，本项目探讨了数字访问在理解这些历史、纠正相关危害以及为被边缘化群体设想新的、更公平的研究形式方面的作用。透过合作建立数位档案，此计划回应原住民社群要求归还科学资料的要求，例如照片、录音、以及记录他们生活与社群的出版物。它探索了数字基础设施的潜力，使社区能够根据其共享和保护知识的规范控制记录它们的材料。分析参与者在科学研究中体验和看待自己的方式将有助于未来的研究人员更好地响应受试者和社区的优先事项。该项目将为本科生和研究生从事社会科学和自然科学研究提供资源、培训和模式。它将促进更广泛的倡议，让科学家、数据存储库和档案材料参与进来，使学术工作的获取和参与民主化，同时保持对土著和地方知识系统的尊重。本项目将借鉴优先考虑知识互惠基础的土著研究的方法论见解，开发一种有效检查知识生产不对称的方法，帮助学者学习如何将互惠和关怀纳入他们的工作。利用社区咨询、半结构化访谈和数字档案建设与使用的民族志收集的数据，本研究将为以下方面提供理论见解：(1)再利用已收集资料的潜力和缺陷；(2)重新配置权力动态和允许基于社区的重新解释的档案和收藏方法如何能够产生关于历史和科学的新知识；(3)科学资料的数字化回报如何有助于社区定义的研究，并更广泛地为土著社区的人文科学研究提供信息。除了科学技术研究学者和科学历史学家之外，图书馆员、档案保管员、博物馆专业人员和其他致力于收集和使用人类数据的隐私和正义的人也会对这个项目感兴趣。研究结果将为人文科学、社会科学和自然科学等广泛领域的研究设计以及与人文学科研究监管相关的政策和实践提供信息。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。