Database Narratives: Conceptualising Digital Heritage Databases in Remote Aboriginal Communities

Abstract

Interactive web-based resources are significant to the mediation of culture in that they act as an interface (Newton: 2003) between communities and information structures. The focus of this paper is on the use of digital media arts and user-centered technologies to develop a digital heritage resource to revitalize a community’s cultural capital. The paper addresses the creation and use of an interactive database that forms the portal to a digital repository of archival media. The database supports and extends an Australian classic memoir, Journey to Horseshoe Bend by TGH Strehlow. Journey to Horseshoe Bend is a vivid ethno-historiographic account of the Aboriginal (Arrernte/Arrarnta), settler and Lutheran communities of Central Australia in the 1920’s. The Journey to Horseshoe Bend database draws on a broad range of visual representations (including images, maps, concept diagrams, text and other media resources), and through hyperlinks connects these media to specific annotated points in an electronic version of the book. The paper focuses on the book’s use as a digital heritage resource and explores the link between information architectures and knowledge practices in particular contexts to address the following question: How can a digital heritage resource be conceived as a sustainable emerging “thing-in-the-making” to reflect community, cultural and knowledge interests? Background resources: http://bugs.commarts.uws.edu.au/cocoon/jhsb/item/69994/ and project website: http://www.commarts.uws.edu.au/jthb/