This week the Omeka Team released a set of add-ons that facilitate the integration of all Omeka platforms with the Local Contexts project. Local Contexts Labels allow Indigenous communities and local organizations to clearly articulate the conditions for sharing, use, and future engagement around collections and data in which they have an interest. Local Contexts Notices enable data and collections holders to mark that they recognize Indigenous rights and interests in those materials and, furthermore, to signal that they want to collaborate with Indigenous stakeholders to articulate the appropriate terms and conditions related to those materials. Once the parties have embarked up on that collaboration, together they can display the results of their deliberations using the Local Contexts Labels.
Since Omeka’s very first release, the platforms have been designed to support open access to both digitalized collections materials and the robust metadata that describes those collections. We have worked hard to encourage standards and protocols that facilitate the free exchange, aggregation, and reuse of materials. Our recent post on supporting FAIR data principles is just our latest articulation of this commitment to open access. However, the preferential option for open access cannot be absolute or uncritical. The sharing of collections and data involving Indigenous peoples, their interests, their archives, and their cultural heritage materials necessitates collaboration with those commmunities on the degree and manner of access which is appropriate. The Local Contexts Labels and Notices help facilitate that collaboration and will enable Omeka users to engage in more responsible collections stewardship.
The availability of the Local Contexts Labels and Notices represents our effort not only to support FAIR data principles but also to support CARE data principles. In 2019, the Research Data Alliance’s International Indigengous Data Sovereignty Interest Group defined those principles as:
- Collective Benefit: Data ecosystems shall be designed and function in ways that enable Indigenous People to derive benefit from the data.
- Authority to Control: Indigenous Peoples’ rights and interests in Indigenous data must be recognised and their authority to control such data be empowered. Indigenous data governance enables Indigenous Peoples and governing bodies to determine how Indigenous Peoples, as well as Indigenous lands, territories, resources, knowledges and geographical indicators, are represented and identified within data.
- Responsibility: Those working with Indigenous data have a responsibility to share how those data are used to support Indigenous Peoples’ self-determination and collective benefit. Accountability requires meaningful and openly available evidence of these efforts and the benefits accruing to Indigenous Peoples.
- Ethics: Indigenous Peoples’ rights and wellbeing should be the primary concern at all stages of the data life cycle and across the data ecosystem.
We are pleased to be able to support our users in upholding these principles in their digital cultural heritage projects with Omeka.net, Omeka Classic, and Omeka S.