The Indigenous Right of Reply to Archives

This book brings together leading Indigenous and allied thinkers, practitioners, and advocates to address the critical issue of the Right of Reply in archives - foregrounding truth-telling, cultural safety, and Indigenous sovereignty across GLAM institutions. Collecting institutions have shaped and maintained records produced by colonial systems of administration and continue to play a role in perpetuating colonial paradigms that are inherently resistant to the needs and priorities of Indigenous peoples. Against this backdrop, this book embarks on a scholarly investigation into the concept known as the 'Right of Reply.' This concept speaks to Indigenous peoples' right to update, correct, critique, or enhance Indigenous knowledge that is held in collecting institutions. Spanning creative responses, case studies, policy critiques, and international perspectives, the volume explores how the Right of Reply operates as a political and ethical imperative in the work of archives. Contributors examine Indigenous-led protocols, the impact of colonial recordkeeping, digital repatriation, metadata annotation, and structural transformation in Australia, Aotearoa, and the United States. The volume offers a blueprint for decolonising archives and centring Indigenous agency, illuminating the innovative strategies being implemented across institutional and community settings. It is essential reading for archivists, curators, scholars, and anyone committed to transforming GLAM practice.

The Indigenous Archives Collective is an international network of Indigenous and allied archivists, scholars, and practitioners advocating for Indigenous sovereignty in archives. Grounded in values of respect, integrity, and social justice, the Collective advances truth-telling, cultural safety, and systemic change across the GLAM sector through dialogue, collaboration, and community-led practice.

Introduction 1 Right of Reply and the Indigenous Archives Collective: Building a Network to Support Dialogue in Indigenous Archives. Introduction 2 Introducing the Indigenous Archives Collective Position Statement on the Right of Reply to Indigenous Knowledges and Information Held in Archives. Creative Response - Right to Know 1. International Indigenous Archival Activism: Reflections on the Right to Know, Right of Reply and Right to Govern from Native North America 2. The Right to Know: Collecting Institutions and the Imperative for Proactive and Responsible Disclosures 3. Digital Preservation of Aboriginal Secret/Sacred Film and Audio Proppa Way 4. What Our Archives Don't Say. Creative Response - Consent 5. Toward a Context for a Right of Reply at the National Library of Australia 6. Collections as Conversation: Right of Reply at UQ Library 7. Indigenous Knowledges in Powerhouse Custodianship: Building Trust, Building Collections 8. Right of Reply: A Matter of Responsibility and Progress. Creative Response - Cultural Safety 9. Mana Tangata: The Right of Reply and Cultural Safety in Aotearoa New Zealand 10. The Archives as Places of Sorry Business: Enacting the Right of Reply to Support Truth-Telling, Healing and Indigenous Wellbeing and Sovereignty Conclusion