Abstract
PARADISEC’s PNG collections represent the great diversity in the regions and languages of PNG. In 2016 and 2017, in recognition of the value of PARADISEC’s collections, ANDS (the Australian National Data Service) provided funding for us to concentrate efforts on enhancing the metadata that describes our Papua New Guinea (PNG) collections, an effort designed to maximise the findability and useability of the language and music recordings preserved in the archive for both source communities and researchers. PARADISEC's subsequent engagement with PNG language experts has led to collaborations with members of speaker communities who are part of the PNG diaspora in Australia. In this paper, we show that making historical recordings more findable, accessible and better described can result in meaningful interactions with and responses to the data in source communities. The effects of empowering speaker communities in their relationships to archives can be far reaching – even inverting, or disrupting the power relationships that have resulted from the colonial histories in which archives are embedded.
Highlights
Historical language and music recordings from Papua New Guinea (PNG) held in the digital repository PARADISEC were recently the focus of a metadata enhancement project
In this paper we describe a case study in which records in the PARADISEC archive have been reconnected with living communities, and demonstrate how this has enlivened the catalogue records, and empowered members of the speaker community to curate and begin recording cultural heritage
In 2016 and 2017, in recognition of the value of PARADISEC’s collections, ANDS provided funding for us to concentrate efforts on enhancing the metadata that describes our Papua New Guinea (PNG) collections, an effort designed to maximise the fndability and usability of the language and music recordings preserved in the archive
Summary
Historical language and music recordings from Papua New Guinea (PNG) held in the digital repository PARADISEC were recently the focus of a metadata enhancement project This project highlighted the meaning that can be made of historical archival materials by making them accessible and connecting them with living speaker communities. PNG is the country represented by the largest number of records within PARADISEC, with 118 collections, compared to the most represented countries, Australia (115), Vanuatu (68), Indonesia (59) and the Solomon Islands (31). This illustrates the prominence of PNG data within PARADISEC, as well as PNG’s signifcance within the Pacifc in the research areas of language, music and culture
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