ARTICLE

Green Ribbon and Blue Ribbon Stories: Applying a Bidjara Way of Knowing to Understanding Records

Leann Wilson¹ and Rose Barrowcliffe^2*

¹Regional Economic Solutions, Brisbane, Australia; ²Department of Indigenous Studies Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia

Abstract

Archival turn scholars have argued that to understand a record one needs to consider its broader provenance. Theoretical and conceptual frameworks such as the record continuum model, parallel provenance and societal provenance have aided in debunking the myth of linear, objective and neutral records. While these theories and concepts support the inclusion of Indigenous worldviews in recordkeeping praxis, Indigenous worldviews have been noticeably absent in the formulation of these and other archival theorisations. This article introduces the green ribbon and blue ribbon stories, an Indigenous, specifically Bidjara, conceptual framework for appraising and interpreting archival records. This conceptual framework has been derived from Bidjara ways of being and knowing. This article consists of three parts: the first introduces the conceptual framework and explains its background. The second discusses the intellectual and cultural authority of the framework and protocols for its use, and the final part of the article demonstrates how the green ribbon and blue ribbon stories’ conceptual framework applies to archives.

Keywords: Bidjara; Green ribbon and blue ribbon stories; Provenance; Traditional Knowledge attribution; appraisal; Traditional Knowledge ownership

 

 

Preface (Rose Barrowcliffe)

In 2021, I attended a Building on the Strengths of our Stories’ cultural strengths workshop held online for Queensland State Archives (QSA) staff. The training was co-developed by Bidjara/Kara-Kara and South Sea Islander woman Leann Wilson (co-author of this paper) and her colleague, Charlene Berndt (who is Kamilaroi with family links to Kokoberra). The training explores some of the key issues of Queensland’s history relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders. To do this, Leann, Charlene and their co-facilitators introduce the green ribbon and blue ribbon stories, a conceptual framework formulated by Leann and drawn from her family’s teachings about Bidjara Country. The green ribbon and blue ribbon stories (explained in detail in Part 1 of this article) provide a framework for exploring issues through both Indigenous and non-Indigenous worldviews. As I listened to Leann and Charlene explain the green ribbon and blue ribbon stories, I grew more and more excited. I could see how it could be used as a conceptual framework to be applied to understanding archival records.

After the training, I searched for the green ribbon and blue ribbon stories in academic publications. I wanted to use them in my research and as an academic, I wanted to use academic citations to ensure that Leann was properly attributed as the intellectual property (IP) holder. I found no mention of the green ribbon and blue ribbon stories in academic publications, so I contacted Leann and asked if she had published them anywhere. When Leann said that she had not published it anywhere I asked if I could support her in doing so. Happily, Leann was as keen to see the green ribbon and blue ribbon stories published as I was, and this article is the result of our collaborative efforts conducted through yarning and writing.

Publishing the green ribbon and blue ribbon stories’ conceptual framework triggered a host of concerns about how to preserve and protect Leann’s intellectual and cultural rights over the knowledge. As an Aboriginal academic, I am keenly aware of the problematic history of appropriation of Indigenous knowledge by academics. Academic, legal and cultural notions of knowledge ownership differ, and this article mediates these three paradigms. As excited as I am that Leann has agreed to publish the green ribbon and blue ribbon stories, I also feel a weight of responsibility in ensuring that Leann does not lose ownership and control of the green ribbon and blue ribbon stories through the publication process. Academic research has a long history of extraction and benefit hoarding when it comes to publication of Indigenous knowledges and non-Indigenous IP laws, such as copyright law, protect those that publish knowledge, even if it is not their own knowledge that they publish.

Extractive research can occur even when the researcher is Indigenous. I did not want this article to be another example of that so I carefully considered how to ensure that Leann remains the sole cultural authority and IP owner of the green ribbon and blue ribbon stories, even though this article is co-authored. As a Butchulla person, I am aware that the green ribbon and blue ribbon stories are connected to Bidjara culture and that I have no authority to share it without Leann’s permission. Rather than wanting to share the conceptual framework on Leann’s behalf, I want to support her in sharing it. Despite being a co-author on this paper, I claim no ownership of the green ribbon and blue ribbon stories conceptual framework or any of the Bidjara stories shared in this article. The rights for the green ribbon and blue ribbon stories conceptual framework and Bidjara stories remain entirely with Leann.

To bring this article to fruition, we have followed cultural and academic protocols. As the academic, I was tasked with the writing. I drafted this article after yarning sessions with Leann. The reader only sees the text-based authorship of this process, but this article was authored orally in those yarning sessions. Perhaps in another time, or with another researcher, this would have been a single-authored paper based on those yarns, but Leann’s cultural authority underpins this article and that is recognised in the article’s structure and citation format. We have drawn on the latest citation practices that recognise Indigenous knowledge and cultural authority. We make clear who has authored each section of the article. Not only does this make the speaking position clear, but it is also a way to protect Leann’s IP and cultural authority in relation to the green ribbon and blue ribbon stories. We encourage all users to follow the citation guide below if you want to use the green ribbon and blue ribbon stories’ conceptual framework in your research (which we sincerely hope you do).

Leann Wilson

Co-founder, Regional Economic Solutions

Leann Wilson is a descendant of the Thompson family of the Bidjara/Kara-Kara and South Sea Islander peoples. She grew up with her Thompson family in and around Barcaldine on Bidjara Country. Leann is the co-founder of Regional Economic Solutions that support Indigenous communities, governments and businesses nationally to broker understanding and co-design agreements. Leann also co-designed the award-winning Building on the strength of our stories training that teaches Queensland history through the lens of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander lived experience affected by the successive Queensland legislation that impacted Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Leann’s work spans community, government, not-for-profit, education and private enterprise.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/leann-wilson-a79b323b/

Rose Barrowcliffe (corresponding author)

Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Centre for Global Indigenous Futures, Macquarie University

Rose Barrowcliffe is a Butchulla postdoctoral research fellow at Department of Indigenous Studies and the Centre for Global Indigenous Futures. Rose’s research examines the representation of Indigenous peoples in archives at both an organisational level and record level. Rose is the inaugural First Nations Archives Advisor to the Queensland State Archives and is an active member of the Indigenous Archives Collective.

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1958-5507

Twitter: @BarrowcliffeR

https://www.linkedin.com/in/rose-barrowcliffe/

The TK (Traditional Knowledge) Notice is a visible notification that there are accompanying cultural rights and responsibilities that need further attention for any future sharing and use of this material. The TK Notice may indicate that TK Labels are in development and their implementation is being negotiated.

Local Contexts Project ID: bd9cd164-c282-4c36-96a2-1f485d67a25b

Citation: Leann Wilson (Bidjara) & Rose Barrowcliffe (Butchulla). ‘Green ribbon and blue ribbon stories: Applying a Bidjara way of knowing to understanding records’, Archives and Manuscripts, vol 50, no 2, 2022. doi: 10.37683/asa.v50.10921

Both authors are recognised in the citation for this article, as per academic convention, but to maintain the correct cultural authority of the green ribbon and blue ribbon stories conceptual framework, Part 1 of this journal article should be cited as:

Leann Wilson (Bidjara) in Leann Wilson (Bidjara) & Rose Barrowcliffe (Butchulla). (2022). Green ribbon and blue ribbon stories: Applying a Bidjara way of knowing to understanding records. Archives and Manuscripts, vol 50, no 2, 2022. doi: 10.37683/asa.v50.10921

INTRODUCTION

Archival records have long been defined, appraised, described and interpreted through a colonial worldview. Post-modern archival theorists introduced notions of non-linear histories and multiple provenances to archival theory, but Indigenous-developed frameworks are still largely absent in mainstream archival praxis. This journal article introduces the green ribbon and blue ribbon stories’ conceptual framework, which is underpinned by Bidjara¹ teachings. The framework has synergies with the records continuum model and societal and parallel provenance but is unique due to its Bidjara ontological and epistemological underpinnings.

This journal article consists of three parts: the first part introduces the green ribbon and blue ribbon stories’ conceptual framework. The second part of the article goes into detail about the intellectual property (IP) rights and protocols for the use of this conceptual framework. The final part of the article discusses how the green ribbon and blue ribbon stories can be applied as a framework to appraise, describe and interpret records. Each of the three parts of this article was deliberated on separately and then brought together holistically in this article because the production and attribution of knowledge are inherently connected to the understanding of that knowledge.

Protecting cultural authority was a key focus throughout the writing and publication process, and in this article, we share the considerations and subsequent solutions we adopted for protecting the IP and cultural authority of the conceptual framework. To protect that cultural authority of the green ribbon and blue ribbon stories, we apply the latest practice in the academic citation for recognising Indigenous knowledges in academic writing. Part 2 of this article uses the green ribbon and blue ribbon stories to demonstrate the differences between legal authority, specifically copyright and IP ownership and cultural authority. While copyright and IP can be used to protect cultural authority in the short term, additional measures need to be taken to protect cultural authority in perpetuity.

The application of the green ribbon and blue ribbon stories provides archival practitioners, theorists and users with an Indigenous, specifically Bidjara, framework for appraising, describing and interpreting records. Part 3 discusses the similarities between the green ribbon and blue ribbon stories’ conceptual framework and existing archival theories such as the records continuum model, parallel provenance and societal provenance. This article argues that while all records have multiple provenances, two specific provenances must always be considered for records in colonised nations like Australia: that of the Indigenous peoples (the green ribbon) and that of the coloniser (the blue ribbon).

By introducing a new conceptual framework and demonstrating how to apply it, we offer contributions to knowledge for both collecting institutions and academic publishing. The intersection of these two fields is the production and management of knowledge. This article demonstrates one possible pathway for producing and managing knowledge from an Indigenous worldview that is congruent to practices in collecting institutions and academia. Further, that any production of Indigenous Knowledge can and should occur with the cultural authority remaining intact, whether that be in an archival or academic setting.

Part 1: The green ribbon and blue ribbon stories of the Bidjara cave paintings

(Leann Wilson – Bidjara/Kara-Kara and South Sea Islander)

The history of Australia can be considered through two different time frames and ways of knowing: Indigenous and non-Indigenous. In this article, we introduce a conceptual framework that represents these two ontologies using two ribbons: one green and one blue. The green ribbon represents Indigenous ontologies that are based on Country, lore, deep time and the stories that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders have known and passed down for tens of thousands of years. The blue ribbon represents the non-Indigenous ontologies, post-invasion history and the events that have occurred since the arrival of the British.

It helps to see this representation in a physical sense, not just as a metaphorical one. When I and my Kamilaroi and Kokoberra colleague, Charlene Berndt, deliver our Building on the Strengths of our Stories training, we bring actual green and blue ribbon into the training rooms for trainees to hold as they consider the history of Queensland. The green ribbon is 65 metres long, with each metre of ribbon signifying 1,000 years. The blue ribbon is just over 25 centimetres long. The blue ribbon is starkly short in comparison to the green ribbon, as is accurate when comparing the long Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander history on this continent against that of the British. I explain how to apply the green ribbon and blue ribbon stories to understanding history by sharing the following story that has been passed down through my family.

On Bidjara country, in central-western Queensland, there are a series of caves that have been a woman’s area for Bidjara women for tens of thousands of years. The caves, known as the Palace, contain paintings that hold Bidjara stories and record Bidjara history. Custodianship of this area has been passed down through Bidjara women for as long as this site has been significant to our people. The Bidjara women give lessons to the Bidjara men at the caves, but the Bidjara men have no authority over the caves. The Bidjara women’s teaching is that women are best positioned to speak of all things to do with women and these gatherings of women and young boys start early in a young boy’s life, well prior to the boys learning from the men.

In 1909, a group of non-Indigenous males came to Bidjara Country to examine the caves. It is believed that in a bid to assess their provenance and significance the visiting men questioned the Bidjara men about the cave paintings. According to Bidjara lore, the Bidjara men do not have cultural authority to speak about the caves or the paintings, so they told the visiting men that they did not know anything about them. From this interaction, the non-Indigenous men concluded that the paintings were not created by or known to the Bidjara.² However, that is an untruth and the story of the Palace must take into consideration both the green ribbon and the blue ribbon stories for the cave. The green ribbon story and the blue ribbon story of this place represent two different worldviews.

Any discussion about the history of the Bidjara cave paintings and their current state of being has seen the assumption that there is no knowledge and thus decisions and writings have excluded without balance and agency of the Bidjara women. The green ribbon story passed down from my grandmother in fact tells a story of the intersectionality of women’s and men’s business. The sacredness of birthing and burials unpacks the story of rights and responsibilities. In this case, the rights of women and the responsibility of the men in honouring and supporting the agency of women and girls were what prevented the men from speaking about the caves.

The green ribbon story passed down by my father is an example of this intersectionality in action. My father never spoke of, or about, the Palace. However, he knew of it and he understood implicitly his responsibility to Mother Earth, his mother, my grandmother and me. It is from this Bidjara knowing he taught us about 4R’s. 4R. was also the family horse brand, so lessons were reinforced each time we branded or saddled and rode our horses. My father spoke of these 4’s, as the stories that underpin our way of knowing, being and doing, taught early to strengthen and ground the learner. The 4Rs include Remember your story, Respect, Relationships and Responsibility (for Mother Earth, self and others).

Part 2: Intellectual property protection and protocols for use of the green ribbon and blue ribbon stories’ conceptual framework (Rose Barrowcliffe-Butchulla)

Protecting the Indigenous cultural and intellectual property (ICIP) of the green ribbon and blue ribbon story has been one of our greatest concerns in relation to this publication. Leann has worked for decades sharing and teaching Indigenous and non-Indigenous people about the importance of seeing history through both Indigenous and non-Indigenous worldviews, and this publication is a continuation of that work. In publishing the green ribbon and blue ribbon stories’ conceptual framework here, Leann is encouraging its use; however; any use should recognise cultural authority of Leann as the developer of the concept and Leann’s family as her teachers.

The process for authoring the journal article has allowed us to explore the intersections and misalignments between Indigenous and academic knowledge production and authority. In this section, we discuss where IP laws, particularly, copyright and creative commons (CC) licensing, fall short of protecting Indigenous Knowledge and cultural authority. To protect the Indigenous Knowledge contained within this article, and the cultural authority over the article, we considered a meld of different knowledge attributions formats including academic citation, Traditional Knowledge Labels (TK Labels) and IP licensing through copyright and CCs. In this section of the article, we explain our choices for attribution, and what they mean for the use of the green ribbon and blue ribbon stories’ conceptual framework.

Authorship and citation

There are many examples over the years of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people losing control of their knowledge once it is shared to the broader public.³ Academic production of knowledge has long seen academics securing IP ownership of Indigenous Knowledge through the publication process.⁴ A slow paradigm shift in academia has seen a move away from extractive research in favour of research done by, for and about Indigenous peoples. This work is being done by the increasing number of Indigenous researchers in academia who are growing the cultural interface within the academy. Not only is Indigenous scholarship within the academy increasing, but Indigenous scholars are changing the way that research is being conducted. Indigenous research methodologies,⁵ and Indigenous research methods⁶ are being increasingly practiced in academia, resulting in relational accountability⁷ underpinning a growing number of research designs. Part of that relational accountability is recognising that knowledge produced in Indigenous communities deserves the same respect and protection as that produced within the academy. It is the responsibility of the academic to ensure this happens.

Supporting Indigenous knowledge governance and sovereignty in research and publishing is multi-faceted and needs to be considered during the various stages of knowledge production, from research design and execution to publication and peer review, and then to citation. Bennett⁸ (Gamilaraay) argues that when writing about Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islanders, researchers should use literature written for and by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander researchers. In cases where it is still necessary to cite non-Indigenous sources, such as when critiquing legacy works, Nathan Sentance⁹ (Wiradjuri) suggests retroactively adding to citations both the names of contributing Indigenous people, and their Nation, if known. The University of Technology Sydney¹⁰ and James Cook University¹¹ have each updated their citation guides to include formats for attributing Indigenous knowledge, including retrospectively adding Indigenous co-contributors and their Nation name to academic citations. Lock et al.,¹² a group of Indigenous and non-Indigenous authors from 11 Indigenous nations (Ngiyampaa, Wiradjuri, Oglala Lakota, Gamilaraay, Ngāpuhi, Bkejwanong, Quandamooka, Bundjalung, Worimi, Nurrunga and Ngarrendjeri) and four colonial nations (Australia, New Zealand, USA and Canada) developed the Indigenous Cultural Identity of Research Authors Standard (ICIRAS), a guide for embedding indigenous identity in author credentials that also give several suggestions for structural change to the publication process.¹³ The Indigenous Archives Collective (IAC) authored CAVAL Indigenous referencing guide for Indigenous knowledges (due to be published in May 2023) gives scholars a framework for first deciding which sources are appropriate and second how to appropriately attribute Indigenous Knowledge authority. All of these guides recommend clearly identifying Indigenous people by name and Nation, Country or language group name, if self-identified by the author, when using their knowledge in research publications. In this journal article, we use the author’s name and their Nation/Country/Language group name, if known, in the initial in-text appearance and then again in the reference list.

It is important to name Indigenous Knowledge holders in academic publications’ citations despite academic citation being an inadequate form of IP protection (discussed further in the next section). Without explicitly stated cultural identities in publications, there is an implied uniformity of cultural standpoints underpinning all research.¹⁴ Including cultural identification of authors can assist both peer reviewers and readings in their appraisals of the rigour and cultural appropriateness of the research.¹⁵ The ramifications of copyright go beyond academic publishing, in our discussions, we have been most concerned with the following reasons for asserting copyright:

• without being named in the citation, or identified in the body of the work, the Indigenous knowledge runs the risk of becoming an orphan work that cannot be connecting back to the community at a later date (libraries, museums and archives already hold many works like this in their collections);
• any knowledge, Traditional or otherwise, comes under the legal control of the named authors when it is published; therefore non-Indigenous researchers become the copyright holders and legal rights holders of any Indigenous Knowledge they publish under their own name;
• while copyright expires, it still provides legal protection for the knowledge published in the works for the life of the author plus 70 years;
• copyright holders are often the designated authority that decides the terms of donations to collecting institutions, including compensation, description and access¹⁶;
• and while there are currently no adequate legal protections for Indigenous Knowledge, ICIP and systems like TK Labels are rapidly evolving and give hope that a solution will be available before the expiry or any copyright licensing commencing today.

Academic authorship has historically been distilled down to those that have physically written the publication and/or those that have been assigned roles within the research team.¹⁷ This practice disadvantages Indigenous Knowledge holders who share their knowledge with researchers without being considered part of the research team or being involved in the writing process.¹⁸ By academic conventions, this article may otherwise have been single authored by Rose Barrowcliffe based on interviews with Leann Wilson, but that would not have provided adequate recognition to the cultural authority of Leann. While this article has been drafted by Rose, the core knowledge shared in this article, the green ribbon and blue ribbon stories’ conceptual framework, is the sole intellectual and cultural property of Leann. As mentioned in the preface, this article was first authored orally, and it is the cultural authority of the knowledge, not the mediums through which it is being published, that has determined the authorship of this article.

In addition to who is included in the citation, author order is also important in academic publishing. First authors’ names are given greater prominence and may be more closely associated with the publication than second or later authors. In academia, first-authored publications are also weighted more favourably in considerations for promotions. The general rule for author order is that the person who contributes the most should be the first author, but author order can also be arranged alphabetically or in order of academic seniority. In the case of this article, Leann Wilson is placed as the first author in the citation format for this article. This author order recognises Leann as the person that formulated the framework, the significance of which supersedes that act of writing the article (the contribution of Rose Barrowcliffe). It also places more emphasis on the importance of cultural authority than the academic writing process. The decision to put Leann first was primarily made to ensure that the green ribbon and blue ribbon stories’ conceptual framework will always be associated with Leann’s name first and foremost, as is appropriate. In placing Leann as the first author, we go against academic citation norms and instead place Indigenous knowledge and cultural authority above academic authorship as the deciding factor for attribution in academic publication.

Copyright, CCs licensing and indigenous knowledge

Publishing the green ribbon and blue ribbon stories’ conceptual framework has meant finding a balance between Indigenous forms of knowledge creation and ownership and non-Indigenous legal frameworks for IP protection. Copyright and CCs licensing, the most widely used forms of IP protection, both fall short in their ability to fully protect Indigenous Knowledge. Torres Strait Islander scholar Professor Martin Nakata¹⁹ noted that when working within the cultural interface, Indigenous people often have to make choices according to the constraints and possibilities of the moment. In publishing this article, we are utilising these non-Indigenous IP legal frameworks to achieve an imperfect protection for the green ribbon and blue ribbon stories’ conceptual framework. In this section, we explain the shortcomings of copyright legislation when using it to protect Indigenous Knowledge.

Copyright legislation is intended to protect ‘original works’. The Copyright Act²⁰ and its subsequent regulations²¹ define what types of original works copyright applies to, and the protection it can offer, but they do not specifically define the term ‘original works’. The Commonwealth of Australia²² and the Australian Copyright Council²³ define original works by the form of the works and the role of the creator. The works must be ‘fixed in material form’, whether that be electronic or hard copy, and the creator must be a human who has used their own ‘intellectual effort’ and ‘requisite skill’ to create a work that is not a copy of another’s work.

The requirement of ‘material form’ reinforces the non-Indigenous underpinnings of the Copyright Act. Material forms include published literature, scripts, song lyrics, audio or visual recordings, emails or computer programs.²⁴ The problem is that for tens of thousands of years, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders have recorded their knowledge in non-material forms such as songs and oral histories. Fixing Indigenous Knowledge in material form has often been undertaken by non-Indigenous people who do not give attribution to Traditional Knowledge holders. In many cases, this has resulted in the non-Indigenous author becoming the copyright owner of Indigenous Knowledge.²⁵ When Indigenous Knowledge enters copyright licensing through publication by people outside of their Traditional Owner communities, it results in the ongoing exclusion of Traditional Owners from the knowledge ownership cycle.²⁶ Where Indigenous Knowledge does exist in material form, such as paintings or artefacts, these material records seldom contain attributions to their individual creators. In the interpretations of original works by the Commonwealth of Australia and the Australian Copyright Council, these previous works fall outside of copyright protection and have been treated as public domain (discussed further in next section). The result is that Indigenous Knowledge, whether fixed in material or non-material form, is rarely recognised by copyright law as being the IP of its Indigenous creators.

Time frames of knowledge creation are the other incompatibility between copyright and Indigenous Knowledge ownership. The work becomes recognised as a complete, original work at the point of publication rather than being seen as a constantly evolving piece of knowledge. The end point of copyright licensing is also definitive, with the most common license term being for the life of the author plus 70 years. By comparison, Indigenous Knowledge ownership does not expire. What is even more alarming about this arbitrarily set expiration date is that it was not even decided by Australian law or people. The time periods for copyright licensing were handed to Australia from the government of the United States as part of Free Trade negotiations.²⁷

In comparison to these restrictive definitions of knowledge creation and form, definitions of Indigenous Knowledge are much more expansive. Indigenous Knowledge is created through collective intellectual effort: it is a communal endeavour over long time periods rather than an individual one with a defined start and end date. Like other forms of original works, Indigenous Knowledge builds on existing knowledge that has been passed down over tens of thousands of years without proprietary ownership by individuals to any one piece of knowledge. Our methods of creating and safeguarding knowledge may be more akin to stewardship, but our attribution and benefit-sharing rights should be treated the same as those of non-Indigenous knowledge creators and owners. This tension between guardianship and ownership prompted this article into being. As guardian of the stories of the Bidjara caves and their paintings, Leann is responsible for protecting those stories. By publishing the green ribbon and blue ribbon stories, Leann’s guardianship is now also recognised as ownership according to copyright law.

What is traditional knowledge and who owns it?

The debate about who owns Indigenous Knowledge and where it sits within the rights and moral obligations of IP law is intertwined with the notion of ‘Traditional Knowledge’. As a legal and political term, ‘Traditional Knowledge’ was ‘invented’ along with the formulation of ‘public domain’ as part of the CCs movement.²⁸ James Boyle, author of Shamans, Software and Spleens: Law and the Construction of the Information Society,²⁹ which launched the CCs movement, argues that IP laws, including copyright laws, are so restrictive that they stymie innovation and creativity. The more nuanced CC licenses function in conjunction with the copyright license and are only valid as long as the copyright license is valid. Boyle uses examples of extraction of Indigenous Knowledge, which he refers to as ‘Traditional Knowledge’, to argue for more nuanced control on knowledge ownership. To support his argument, he gives the example of the extraction of medicinal knowledge from Indigenous peoples in the Amazon rainforest and Madagascar by large pharmaceutical companies. These companies use Indigenous knowledge to identify plants that have medicinal properties, they then commercialise the active ingredients without sharing any of the benefits with the Indigenous Knowledge holders. Boyle argues that the Indigenous Knowledge of the medicinal plants should not be able to be exclusively privatised by the pharmaceutical companies and that Indigenous people should share in the benefits of the commercialisation of their knowledge. Boyle connects protecting Indigenous Knowledge with environmental and cultural sustainability, arguing that financial rewards for sharing of their knowledge would support Indigenous peoples in continuing their medicinal, cultural and land use practices.³⁰ Boyle’s argument is not that large pharmaceutical companies should not be allowed to extract, commercialise and profit from Indigenous Knowledge, but that if they are going to do so, the Indigenous Knowledge holders should benefit as well.

Sunder³¹ takes exception to Boyle’s formulation of Indigenous peoples as conservators of knowledge rather than IP holders. Sunder contests that Boyle’s arguments for Traditional Knowledge to sit in the public domain frame Traditional Knowledge as ‘raw material for innovation’³² rather than innovation itself. Furthermore, Sunder argues that Indigenous people need to be seen not just as wardens of ‘raw materials’ (including Traditional Knowledge), but as being an active part of the knowledge production process. After all, IP is not just about knowledge products but also knowledge processes. Drawing on the World Intellectual Property Organization’s 2006 report Intellectual Property and Traditional Knowledge,³³ Sunder argues that Indigenous Knowledge is not static, and therefore IP rights must also be applied to new developments in Indigenous knowledge. Sunder surmises that adaptation of Traditional knowledge to contemporary problems is not just pragmatic, it is a sign of a healthy and dynamic culture.

The term ‘Traditional Knowledge’ locks Indigenous knowledge production in the past. It indicates an invisible line drawn at the time of invasion to delineate knowledge created before invasion as ‘Traditional’ and everything since as something different. The truth is that knowledge is constantly evolving and the original knowledge today is the Traditional Knowledge of the future. Therefore, the original knowledge created today, and the original knowledge created in times past deserves the same amount of protection because the process of their development is the same.

The green ribbon and blue ribbon stories’ conceptual framework is Sunder’s argument in action; it is the Traditional Knowledge of Bidjara people adapted to the contemporary problem of trying to understand Australian history when there are multiple narratives. Though formulated over the past 30 years, the conceptual framework is underpinned with ancient Bidjara teachings, ways of knowing, doing and being. The green ribbon and blue ribbon stories’ conceptual framework illustrates that though the Bidjara culture is ancient, it is not stagnant, and it is alive and evolving in current times. The green ribbon and blue ribbon stories’ conceptual framework deserves the same rights and protections as long-held Traditional Knowledge.

Traditional knowledge (TK) Labels

Despite the limited time periods for IP protection under copyright law, the green ribbon and blue ribbon stories’ conceptual framework will always belong to Leann and her family. An additional method of rights assertion is needed to support the perpetual ownership of the green ribbon and blue ribbon stories’ conceptual framework as an original work of Indigenous (Bidjara) Knowledge that also recognises the long and continuing arc of Indigenous Knowledge creation. One possible solution to support perpetual rights attribution is the TK Labels created by Local Contexts.

Local Context Labels,³⁴ more commonly known as TK Labels, have been developed in collaboration with Indigenous communities and are an extra-legal layer of IP protection that provides attribution to the Indigenous Knowledge holders. TK Labels were born out of the realisation that archives ‘radically fail’ Indigenous communities.³⁵ Not only do Indigenous peoples not control their own cultural heritage in archives, but they often do not even have access to it. Archives and research are built on a tradition of ‘extraction’ and ‘deliberate theft’,³⁶ which results in data (knowledge held in records and materials) being collected and held with no provenance information.³⁷ TK Labels were created to address the lack of provenance in existing Indigenous Knowledge materials held in archives. They are a tool for Indigenous communities to reconnect their knowledge stored in archives back to their community.

The Local Context Labels apply the CARE (Collective benefit; Authority to control; Responsibility; Ethics)³⁸ to Indigenous data sovereignty³⁹ by building correct ownership attribution into the metadata of catalogues storing Indigenous Knowledge, but it is not always appropriate to use the labels. What is often referred to simply as TK Labels is in fact a system that combines three user profiles (Indigenous community, institution or researcher), two types of attribution (Traditional Knowledge (TK) or Bio-cultural knowledge (BC)) with two levels of attribution (labels or notices) to create a nuanced ICIP rights support mechanism.⁴⁰ TK Labels and BC Labels are used by Indigenous communities to clarify rights, interests, relationships and protocols of knowledge and bio-cultural information. TK Labels and BC Labels can only be created by Indigenous communities and are created and managed at a community/tribe/iwi level. TK and BC Notices are used by researchers and institutions to acknowledge Traditional Knowledge in their records and indicate their support for Indigenous rights and interests in relation to that knowledge. The TK Notices are unique in that they create a pathway for institutions and researchers to open the door to attribution without impinging on Indigenous knowledge owners ‘authority to decide for themselves what the labels on the knowledge should be. They can also hold space for collaboration between institutions and Indigenous communities before they have established a relationship and can do so without pushing Indigenous communities to adhere to institution and researchers’ timelines. The notices open the door to collaboration and relationship building and, when the partnership results in mutual trust, may eventually lead to TK/BC Notices being replaced with TK/BC Labels.⁴¹

Within the Local Contexts framework, this journal article is seen as a project between a researcher (Rose) and an individual Indigenous community member (Leann). Initially, we had hoped to use TK Labels to provide attribution to Leann and her family for the green ribbon and blue ribbon stories’ conceptual framework. After gaining a fuller understanding of how the Local Contexts labels and notices operate, we have instead used a TK Notice (displayed at the beginning of this article before the abstract). In the case of this article, a TK Notice was more appropriate than a TK Label because Leann and I have worked at an inter-personal level rather than at a community level as required by Local Contexts. The TK Notice for this journal article indicates that there is Indigenous knowledge in the article that will continue to carry moral obligations long after the copyright and CC licensing expire. This is the first article to use TK Notices in an academic journal article (J. Anderson, personal communication, Feb 9, 2023) and demonstrates its application in academic publishing. Specifically, the use of the TK Notice in this article demonstrates the ability for researchers to make public disclosures about Indigenous knowledge that informs their research.

This article demonstrates one possible way that institutions and researchers can begin the process of connecting research data and archival records back to their Indigenous owners and cultural authorities. Non-Indigenous IP legislation remains an imperfect method of securing Indigenous Knowledge ownership rights. These rights relate not just to commercialisation of Indigenous Knowledge but also to the cultural protocols for the use of Indigenous Knowledge. Solutions like Local Context’s TK Labels and Notices can fill gaps created by IP legislation. By using TK Notices, institutions and researchers can act according to their moral obligations to Indigenous knowledge owners without being held back by legislative limitations.

Part 3: Green ribbon and blue ribbon stories and archives (Rose Barrowcliffe)

In the Building on the Strength of our Stories workshops, Leann Wilson, Charlene and their colleagues use the green ribbon and blue ribbon stories’ conceptual framework to understand Queensland history. To do this, they examine Queensland’s post-invasion history through the successive legislation that directly impacted Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders and discuss the effect those pieces of legislation have had on Indigenous peoples’ lives using specific examples from their own families. Issues like place names, Stolen Generations, stolen wages, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health outcomes and more are discussed by considering the green ribbon stories (deep time, connection to Country, Indigenous Knowledge and lived experience) and blue ribbon stories (colonist legislation, non-Indigenous lived experience, colonial narratives) of these topics. This process of considering the multiple perspectives to a topic, and also the evolution of understanding of certain issues through the telling and retelling of a story has parallels with archival theories such as societal provenance,⁴² parallel provenance⁴³ and the records continuum model.⁴⁴ These archival theories and concepts have been developed by and remain largely contained in the discussions of archival theorists. By comparison, the green ribbon and blue ribbon stories’ conceptual framework has been developed from a lay user and Indigenous, specifically Bidjara, worldview. It is one that is easily translatable and understandable to archival theorists, practitioners and users alike and can be applied to any archival record or process.

Leann’s family’s story of the visitors to the Bidjara caves applies the green ribbon and blue ribbon stories to interpret both the original record and the pluralised record. The original record is the paintings that remain located in the caves on Bidjara Country. Derived from that is a new record, The Queenslander newspaper article published in October 1909. Using a records continuum framework, this new record (the newspaper article) can be seen as a pluralisation of the existing one (the Bidjara cave paintings). It is a record created in the continuum that is the story of the Bidjara cave paintings. The original record was pluralised when the photographs of the paintings were published in The Queenslander. In the process of pluralisation the record is dis-embedded from its original context, community and meaning. The new record gained additional provenance information derived from a society markedly different from the one that created the original record.

The newspaper article (‘Prehistoric Aboriginal Art’, 1909, p. 29) states that, ‘The oldest blacks in the neighbourhood have no knowledge of ever seeing or hearing about these paintings’. When Leann explains why this is inaccurate she does so by explaining the societal provenance, that is, both the Bidjara and non-Indigenous ways of knowing, that brought this article to bear. Accurate appraisal and interpretation of this record require an understanding of the multiple provenances of the record. Choosing to explain the record with just one of those provenances would significantly impact the understanding of the record.

Perhaps the strongest concordance between the green ribbon and blue ribbon stories and the records’ continuum model is the notion of non-linear storying. This conceptual framework can easily be mistaken as a linear temporal framework – after all the ribbons themselves are literal lines – but it is important to remember that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories are non-linear and often cyclical in nature, and in this regard, the green ribbon and blue ribbon stories’ framework resembles the records’ continuum model. It is sobering to think that the green ribbon has looped tens of thousands of times through the records’ continuum as each oral record is told and retold, and applied and reapplied to each Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander generation to maintain our cultures and care for our Traditional Countries. This act of bringing Traditional Knowledge into contemporary discourse is an act of pluralisation.

In comparison to green ribbon stories, the blue ribbon stories have had a relatively brief existence in the Australian continent’s history, but owing to the preference for colonial nation-building narratives, and the western archival practice of prioritising text-based records created by colonists, the blue ribbon stories have been repeatedly and strategically pluralised in the short period since invasion. As a result, blue ribbon stories have dominated our understanding of this continent’s history since invasion. For the past 250 or so years, the blue ribbon story has also pluralised repeatedly, sometimes in conjunction with the green ribbon story, but mostly not.

In her book ‘We come with this place’ Gudanji/Wakaja,⁴⁵ author Debra Dank relates a story that demonstrates the long cyclical nature of Indigenous recordkeeping via living archives on Country. Dank tells the story of her family being led on a walk on their Traditional Country by their Aunty. The Aunty stops at a circle of cycads where she picks the strongest looking nuts from the cycad plants and passes them to the children. She then asks the children to use their feet to create a hole in which to plant the seed they have been given. As the children do this, their aunty explains that each of the existing cycads has been planted in the same way by their ancestors. The Aunt, a woman in her eighties, points to an existing cycad and says, ‘This one here… I put with my grandmother. I was a young girl’. and pointing at another larger cycad, ‘That one, my mother put with her grandmother. That big one there, grandmother’s grandmother put there when she was a little one with her granny’.⁴⁶ The green ribbon story of that place is one of intentional land management and small scale agriculture to support food security. When we consider the cycad grove as a records’ continuum, we see each plant is a record of both a person and a cultural practice, but also a pluralisation of the stories of each previous cycad planting event. As McKemmish et al.⁴⁷ put it, ‘Records are also embodied in people and embedded in Country’. The blue ribbon story, one can easily imagine, is seeing a cluster of cycads and assuming that they had occurred there by chance – that the Traditional Owners’ existence is parallel to, but inconsequential to that of the natural environment.

The green ribbon and blue ribbon stories need not be diametrically opposed to each other but can remind us that there are multiple influences on any record. Tom Nesmith⁴⁸ and Chris Hurley⁴⁹ argue that all records have multiple provenances, and that these multiple provenances should be considered as part of any record appraisal, description and interpretation. Nesmith states that all records have societal provenance and all provenance has societal dimensions. People create records for social purposes according to their understanding of society and their place in it.⁵⁰ The record creator’s circumstances influence what they perceive as trustworthy, authentic, reliable and what they consider worth remembering or forgetting.⁵¹ It also influences where the record creator gathers their information from, who they have access to and who they see as a trustworthy source. The green ribbon and blue ribbon stories are two provenance channels specific to colonised nations that should always be considered when appraising, describing and interpreting records. In the case of the 1909 Queenslander article about the Bidjara cave paintings, the societal provenance of the article dramatically affects the interpretation of the record. By using the green ribbon and blue ribbon stories framework, we are perhaps not decolonising the records, but we are reaffirming Indigenous sovereignty in all records that relate to Traditional Countries in so-called Australia. As Hurley asserts, integrating these multiple provenances into the record does not detract from it, but enriches it.⁵²

The application of the green ribbon and blue ribbon stories’ conceptual framework to archival praxis is particularly relevant at this point in Queensland and Australia’s history when truth-telling is seen as a key component of the Treaty process.⁵³ While postmodern theory precludes the possibility of knowing anything as an absolute truth, the green ribbon and blue ribbon stories’ conceptual framework consistently applied to archival records used in truth telling can assist in the interpretation of those records to ensure that both Indigenous and non-Indigenous worldviews and lived experiences contribute to understanding shared histories.

Conclusion

This journal article introduces the green ribbon and blue ribbon stories’ conceptual framework that has been developed from an Indigenous, specifically Bidjara worldview. This conceptual framework, developed by Bidjara woman Leann Wilson, is drawn from her Bidjara ways of being and knowing. The green ribbon and blue ribbon stories’ conceptual framework is shared through this publication in the hope that others will find it useful for appraising and interpreting records. This article details the special consideration given to the appropriate ways for the conceptual framework to be used and how to protect the IP and cultural authority of Leann as the developer of the conceptual framework and her family as holders and teachers of the underpinning Bidjara knowledge. In discussing the IP and cultural authority considerations for the green ribbon and blue ribbon stories, we have introduced the use of TK Notices to academic publishing and demonstrated how researchers can make public disclosures of Indigenous Knowledge in their work. The green ribbon and blue ribbon stories’ conceptual framework has synergies with existing archival theoretical and conceptual frameworks such as the records’ continuum model, societal provenance and parallel provenance. This conceptual framework differs in that it has been developed from an Indigenous worldview by a lay-user of archives. This article’s three distinct sections (introducing the green ribbon and blue ribbon stories; giving clear guidelines for its use and attribution and relating the green ribbon and blue ribbon stories’ conceptual framework to archival appraisal and interpretation) provide the reader with a new tool for archival appraisal and interpretation, as well as guidance for how to use that tool. This article argues that in colonial countries at least two provenances, Indigenous (represented by the green ribbon) and non-Indigenous (represented by the blue ribbon) should always be considered when appraising, describing and interpreting archival records.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to recognise the enduring knowledge authority of the Bidjara people and all First Nations across the Australian continent.

Many thanks to the Local Contexts team for helping us to apply TK Notices for the very first time in an academic publication. Thank you to Archives and Manuscripts General Editor, Jessie Lymn for her support and collaboration with the authors and the Local Contexts team.

Notes

1.	The Bidjara Nation is located in central-western Queensland, Australia.
2.	Unknown. (1909, October 23). Prehistoric Aboriginal Art. The Queenslander, p. 29.
3.	Terri Janke’s (Wuthathi/Meriam) gives several examples in her book True Tracks: Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property Principles for Putting Self-Determination into Practice, NewSouth Publishing, Sydney, 2021.
4.	Linda Tuhiwai Smith (Ngati Awa and Ngati Porou), Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples, 2nd Revised edition, Zed Books Ltd, London, 2012.
5.	Barbara Charbonneau-Dahlen (American Indian Chippewa), ‘Symbiotic Allegory as Innovative Indigenous Research Methodology’, Advances in Nursing Science, vol. 43, no. 1, 2020, pp. E25–35, doi: 10.1097/ANS.0000000000000257; Maggie Kovach (Saulteaux and Plains Cree), ‘Emerging from the Margins: Indigenous Methodologies’, in Susan Strega and Leslie Brown (eds.), Research as Resistance, Canadian Scholars’ Press, Toronto, pp. 43–64, available at https://books.google.com.au/books?hl=en&lr=&id=4UNVCgAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA43&dq=info:eXrWnVM9AscJ:scholar.google.com&ots=WNAfOohRoI&sig=ktYDnDh3E88zakAv34gjGeR-LaI&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false, accessed 26 November 2021; Linda Tuhiwai Smith, Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples, 2nd Revised edition, Zed Books Ltd, London, 2012.
6.	Stuart Barlo (Yuin), William Edgar Boyd, Alessandro Pelizzon, Shawn Wilson (Opaskwayak Cree), ‘Yarning as Protected Space: Relational Accountability in Research’, AlterNative: An International Journal of Indigenous Peoples, vol. 16, no. 2, 2020, pp. 90–8, doi: 10.1177/1177180120986151; Dawn Bessarab (Bardi) and Bridget Ng’andu, ‘Yarning About Yarning as a Legitimate Method in Indigenous Research’, International Journal of Critical Indigenous Studies, vol. 3, no. 1, 2010, pp. 37–50, doi: 10.5204/ijcis.v3i1.57.
7.	Stuart Barlo (Yuin), William Edgar Boyd, Alessandro Pelizzon, Shawn Wilson (Opaskwayak Cree); Shawn Wilson.
8.	Bindi Bennett (Gamilaraay), ‘Australian Social Work: Proposed Guidelines for Articles by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Authors and about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Issues’, Australian Social Work, vol. 75, no. 3, 2022, pp. 273–9.
9.	Nathan Mudyi Sentance (Wiradjuri), ‘Indigenous Referencing Prototype – Non-Indigenous Authored Works’, available at https://archivaldecolonist.com/, accessed 7 May 2020; Cameron Gooley, ‘Sydney University Library Overhauls How People Use Indigenous Resources’, Sydney Morning Herald, June 3 2022, available at https://www.smh.com.au/national/australia-s-oldest-uni-library-overhauls-how-people-use-indigenous-resources-20220530-p5apjm.html, accessed 23 March 2023.
10.	UTS, ‘APA 7th Referencing Guide’, pp. 101–7, available at https://www.uts.edu.au/sites/default/files/article/downloads/UTS%20Interactive%20APA%20guide.pdf, accessed 23 March 2023.
11.	James Cook University, First Nations Works, APA (7th Edition) Referencing Guide – Library Guides at James Cook University, available at https://libguides.jcu.edu.au/apa/First-Nations, accessed 23 March 2023.
12.	Mark John Lock (Ngiyampaa), Faye McMillan (Wiradjuri), Donald Warne (Oglala Lakota), Bindi Bennett (Gamilaraay), Jacquie Kidd (Ngāpuhi), Naomi Williams (Bkejwanong), Jodie Lea Matire, Paull Worley, Peter Hutten-Czapski, Emily Saurman, Veronica Matthews (Quandamooka), Emma Walke (Bundalung), Dave Edwards (Worimi), Julie Owen (Nurrunga and Ngarrendjeri), Jennifer Brown & Russell Roberts, ‘Indigenous Cultural Identity of Research Authors Standard: Research and Reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples in Rural Health Journals’, Canadian Journal of Rural Medicine, vol. 27, no. 3, p. 7646, doi: 10.22605/RRH7646.
13.	ICIRAS goes beyond requesting that cultural identity is including in authors by-lines, it calls for change at all levels of academic publication by suggesting academic publications: conduct an audit of the status of Indigenous peoples at all levels of their governance, including editorial boards and the various stages of publishing; update the manuscript submission process to include questions about author indigeneity and Indigenous participation in the research; revise author guidelines to acknowledge Indigenous contributions; and, have a public statement on their position on research with Indigenous peoples.
14.	Lock et al.
15.	Ibid.
16.	Rose Barrowcliffe (Butchulla) for National and State Libraries of Australasia, NSLA Contemporary Collections Audit, 2022, available at https://www.nsla.org.au/sites/default/files/2022-05/nsla-indigenous-collections-audit-stage2.pdf, accessed 15 January 2023.
17.	The Archives & Manuscripts website gives the following definition of authorship for journal article submissions: Each of the manuscript’s authors should meet all three of the following criteria: (1) has made a substantial contribution to the design of the study, the collection of the data, or the analysis or interpretation of the data; (2) has drafted the manuscript or helped revise it, shaping its intellectual content; (3) has approved of the submitted manuscript. Archives & Manuscripts, ‘Authorship’, n.d., available at https://publications.archivists.org.au/index.php/asa/authorship, accessed 13 January 2023.
18.	Local Contexts, ‘Local Contexts Overviews’, n.d., available at https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XuqCsIDruKcH98sK529IrhDZZaTcRDT_/view, accessed 20 December 2022.
19.	Martin Nakata (Torres Strait Islander), ‘The Cultural Interface’, The Australian Journal of Indigenous Education, vol. 36, no.1, 2007, pp. 7–14.
20.	Commonwealth of Australia, Copyright Act 1968, 1968, available at https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/C2019C00042, accessed 16 January 2023.
21.	Commonwealth of Australia, Copyright Act – Regulations – Statutory Rules 1969 No. 65, available at https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;query=Id%3A%22publications%2Ftabledpapers%2FHSTP0459_1969%22;src1=sm1, 1969, accessed 16 January 2023; and Commonwealth of Australia, Copyright (International Protection) Regulations 1969, 1969, available at http://classic.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_reg/cpr1969506/, accessed 16 January 2023.
22.	Commonwealth of Australia, Short Guide to Copyright, 2016, available at https://www.infrastructure.gov.au/sites/default/files/short_guide_to_copyright.pdf, accessed 17 January 2023.
23.	Copyright Council of Australia, Introduction to Copyright in Australia, 2022, available at https://www.copyright.org.au/browse/book/ACC-An-Introduction-to-Copyright-in-Australia-INFO010/, accessed 16 January 2023.
24.	Commonwealth of Australia, 1968.
25.	Terri Janke explores the conflicts between Indigenous Knowledge ownership and IP law extensively in her work and research. See Terri Janke, True Tracks, New South Publishing, Sydney, 2021.
26.	Cases where Indigenous Knowledge became the IP of academics are plentiful. For example, anthropologist Margaret Lawie’s 1970 book ‘Myths and Legends of the Torres Strait’ made Lawrie the copyright owner of oral histories and stories from across the Torres Strait.
27.	Copyright Council of Australia, 2022.
28.	Madhavi Sunder, ‘The Invention of Traditional Knowledge’, Law and Contemporary Problems, vol. 70, no. 2, 2007, pp. 97–124.
29.	James Boyle, Shamans, Software, and Spleens: Law and the Construction of the Information Society, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, USA and London, England, 1996.
30.	Ibid.
31.	Sunder.
32.	Ibid., p. 101.
33.	World Intellectual Property Organization, Intellectual Property and Traditional Knowledge, 2006, available at https://www.wipo.int/edocs/pubdocs/en/tk/920/wipo_pub_920.pdf, accessed 20 January 2023.
34.	For more information on Local Contexts labels https://localcontexts.org, accessed 15 January 2023.
35.	Jane Anderson, ‘Local Contexts’, available at https://vimeo.com/622861354, accessed 4 October 2021, 00:00:43.
36.	Ibid., 00:01:19.
37.	Maui Hudson (Whakatōhea), ‘Local Contexts’, available at https://vimeo.com/622861354, accessed 4 October 2021, 00:06:52.
38.	Stephani Russo Carroll, Ibrahim Garba, Oscar L Figueroa-Rodríguez, Jarita Holbrook, Raymond Lovett, Simeon Materechera, Mark Parsons, Kay Raseroka, Desi Rodriguez-Lonebear, Robyn Rowe, Rodrigo Sara, Jennifer D Walker, Jane Anderson and Maui Hudson, ‘The CARE Principles for Indigenous Data Governance’, Data Science Journal, vol. 19, no. 1, 2020, p. 43, doi: 10.5334/dsj-2020-043.
39.	Local Contexts, ‘Local Contexts Overviews’, n.d., available at https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XuqCsIDruKcH98sK529IrhDZZaTcRDT_/view, accessed 20 December 2022.
40.	Ibid.; Kimberley Christen, ‘Tribal Archives, Traditional Knowledge, and Local Contexts: Why the “S” Matters’, Journal of Western Archives, vol. 6, no. 1, 2015, pp. 1–19.
41.	Local Contexts, ‘Local Contexts’, available at https://vimeo.com/622861354, accessed 4 October 2021.
42.	Tom Nesmith, ‘Reopening Archives: Bringing New Contextualities into Archival Theory and Practice’, Archivaria, vol. 60, ed. Fall 2005, 2005, pp. 259–74; Tom Nesmith, ‘The Concept of Societal Provenance and Records of Nineteenth-Century Aboriginal-European Relations in Western Canada: Implications for Archival Theory and Practice’, Archival Science, vol. 6, nos. 3–4, 2006, pp. 351–60, doi: 10.1007/S10502-007-9043-9/FIGURES/3.
43.	Chris Hurley, ‘Parallel Provenance: (1) What, If Anything, Is Archival Description?’, Archives and Manuscripts, vol. 33, no. 1, 2005a, pp. 110–43, doi: 10.3316/ielapa.200601141; Chris Hurley, ‘Parallel Provenance (If These Are Your Records, Where Are Your Stories?)’, 2005b; Chris Hurley, ‘Parallel Provenance Part 2: When Something Is Not Related to Everything Else’, Archives and Manuscripts, vol. 33, no. 2, pp. 52–91, doi: 10.3316/ielapa.200601141.
44.	Joanne Evans, Sue McKemmish and Greg Rolan, ‘Crticial Approaches to Archiving and Recordkeeping in the Continuum’, Journal of Critical Library and Information Studies, vol. 1, no. 2, 2017, pp. 122–60, doi: 10.24242/jclis.v1i2.35; Sue McKemmish, Frank Upward and Barbara Reed, ‘Records Continuum Model’, in Marcia J Bates and Mary Niles Maack (eds.), Encyclopedia of Library and Information Sciences, 3rd edition, CRC Press, Boca Raton, 2009, pp. 4447–59, doi: 10.1081/E-ELIS3-120043719; Barbara Reed, ‘Reading the Records Continuum: Interpretations and Explorations’, Archives and Manuscripts, vol. 33, no. 1, 2005, pp. 18–43, doi: 10.3316/ielapa.200601137; Frank Upward, ‘Structuring the Records Continuum Part One: Post-Custodial Principles and Properties’, Archives and Manuscripts, vol. 24, no. 2, 1996, pp. 268–85; Frank Upward, ‘Structuring the Records Continuum Part Two: Structuration Theory and Recordkeeping’, Archives and Manuscripts, vol. 25, no. 1, 1997, pp. 10–35, doi: 10.3316/ielapa.980100005.
45.	Debra Dank (Gudanji/Wakaja), We Come with this Place, Echo Publishing, London, 2022.
46.	Ibid., p. 243.
47.	Sue McKemmish, Tom Chandler and Shannon Faulkhead (Koorie), ‘Imagine: A Living Archive of People and Place “Somewhere beyond Custody”’, Archival Science, vol. 19, no. 3, 2019, pp. 281–301, doi: 10.1007/s10502-019-09320-0.
48.	Tom Nesmith, ‘Reopening Archives: Bringing New Contextualities into Archival Theory and Practice’, Archivaria, vol. 60, Fall 2005, pp. 259–74; Tom Nesmith, ‘The Concept of Societal Provenance and Records of Nineteenth-Century Aboriginal-European Relations in Western Canada: Implications for Archival Theory and Practice’, Archival Science, vol. 6, nos. 3–4, 2006, pp. 351–60, doi: 10.1007/S10502-007-9043-9/FIGURES/3.
49.	Chris Hurley, ‘Parallel Provenance: (1) What, If Anything, Is Archival Description?’, Archives and Manuscripts, vol. 33, no. 1, 2005a, pp. 110–43, doi: 10.3316/ielapa.200601141; Chris Hurley, ‘Parallel Provenance (If These Are Your Records, Where Are Your Stories?)’, 2005b; Hurley, ‘Parallel Provenance Part 2’, 2005c.
50.	Tom Nesmith, ‘The Concept of Societal Provenance and Records of Nineteenth-Century Aboriginal-European Relations in Western Canada: Implications for Archival Theory and Practice’, Archival Science, vol. 6, no. 3–4, 2006, pp. 351–60, doi: 10.1007/S10502-007-9043-9/FIGURES/3.
51.	Ibid., p. 352.
52.	Hurley, 2005a.
53.	In 2022, the incoming Australian Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, made a commitment to the Uluru Statement of the Heart and promised a referendum on an Indigenous voice to parliament in his first term as Prime Minister (see Emma Lee, ‘Prime Minister Albanese’s Victory Speech Brings Hope for First Nations Peoples’ Role in Democracy’, The Conversation, 22 May 2022, available at https://theconversation.com/prime-minister-albaneses-victory-speech-brings-hope-for-first-nations-peoples-role-in-democracy-183454, accessed 24 March 2023; and Lorena Allam, ‘Voice, Treaty, Truth’, The Guardian, 22 May 2022, available at https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/may/22/voice-treaty-truth-what-does-labors-commitment-to-uluru-statement-from-the-heart-mean, accessed 24 March 2023. Also in 2022, the Queensland Government committed to Treaty or Treaties with the First Nations of Queensland. In accepting all the recommendations of the Treaty Advancement Committee, either in part or full, the Queensland Government committed to a truth telling process for the people of Queensland. See Queensland Government, ‘Palaszczuk Government Launches the Start of the Formal Path to Treaty’, 16 August 2022, available at https://statements.qld.gov.au/statements/95967, accessed 24 March 2023.