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: 2147325
• 负责人: Lori Jahnke
• 金额: $ 8.41万
• 依托单位: Emory University
• 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=2147325&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，博物馆和档案馆正在努力解决如何负责任地管理和照顾在不平等的权力动态下创建的科学收藏品的问题时，这个项目探讨了数字访问在理解这些历史，纠正相关危害方面的作用，并为被边缘化的群体设想新的和更公平的研究形式。通过合作建立数字档案，该项目回应了土著社区关于归还记录其生活和社区的照片、录音和出版物等科学材料的请求。它探讨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他们的材料。分析参与者在科学研究方面的经验和看法，将有助于未来的研究人员更好地应对主题和社区的优先事项。该项目将为本科生和研究生提供资源、培训和模式，以从事社会科学和自然科学的研究。该项目将促进更广泛的举措，让科学家、数据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体系的尊重，该项目将借鉴土著研究中优先考虑知识互惠基础的方法论见解，制定一种方法，有效审查知识生产中的不对称现象，帮助学者学习如何将互惠和关怀融入他们的工作。通过社区咨询、半结构化访谈和民族志对数字档案馆的建设和使用所收集的数据，本研究将提供以下理论见解：（1）重新利用已收集材料的潜力和陷阱;（2）重新配置权力动态并允许基于社区的重新解释的档案和收藏方法如何产生关于历史和科学的新知识;（3）科学材料的数字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。除了科学和技术研究学者和科学历史学家，这个项目将感兴趣的图书馆员，档案管理员，博物馆专业人士，以及其他致力于隐私和正义的收集和使用人类数据。研究成果将为人文科学、社会科学和自然科学等广泛领域的研究设计以及与人类受试者研究监管相关的政策和实践提供信息。该奖项反映了NSF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。