Collaborative Research: Digital Archives and Indigenous Afterlives of Scientific Objects

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爱护在不平等权力动态下创造的科学收藏品的问题时，这个项目探索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的群体设想新的、更公平的研究形式方面的作用。通过合作建立数字档案馆，该项目回应了土著社区提出的归还照片、录音和记录其生活和社区的出版物等科学材料的要求。它探讨了数字基础设施的潜力，使社区能够根据社区分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回应受试者和社区的优先事项。该项目将为本科生和研究生在社会科学和自然科学领域的研究提供资源、培训和模式。它将有助于更广泛的倡议，使科学家、数据存储库和档案材料参与学术工作民主化，同时保持对土著和当地知识体系的尊重。该项目借鉴土著研究的方法论见解，优先考虑知识的互惠基础，将开发一种有效检查知识生产中的不对称性的方法，帮助学者学习如何将互惠和关怀纳入他们的工作。利用通过社区磋商、半结构化访谈和数字档案馆建设和使用的人种学收集的数据，这项研究将提供关于以下方面的理论见解：(1)重新利用已经收集的材料的潜力和陷阱；(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品方法如何能够产生关于历史和科学的新知识；(3)科学材料的数字归还如何有助于社区定义的研究，并为更广泛的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史学家之外，图书馆员、档案员、博物馆专业人员以及其他致力于收集和使用人类数据方面的隐私和正义的人也将对这个项目感兴趣。研究结果将为人文、社会科学和自然科学的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智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

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.