Reciprocal Curation Workflow

Through the TK Labels, Local Contexts is working to develop an alternative model of cultural curatorial workflows for Native American, First Nation, Metis, Inuit, Aboriginal and Indigenous collections of cultural heritage. These workflows offer new curatorial and collaborative models that address the unique problem of public domain materials and third party owned content that is divorced from local communities and missing rich narration, attribution and curation. Below is a general visualization of our alternative workflow and how it might begin to set new standards – from gathering content, to vetting, to customization, to catalog location – for the diversity of collecting institutions and tribal archives, libraries and museums. We are currently working with a variety of institutions to identify what their unique workflow will look like, and we will be sharing these over the coming year. As each institution is different, we will have a variety of workflow models that come out of smaller and larger institutions.

Our first workflow will be the one we have developed with the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress for their work labeling, interpreting and repositioning the cultural authority over the first sound recordings of Native America ever made: the 27 Passamaquoddy cylinder sound recordings made in Calais Maine in March 1890.

See below to learn more:

Reciprocal Curation Workflow: Outcome
What TK labeling activates, and the new workflow makes visible, is the already interconnected temporality and histories embedded within these collections. More dialogic and dynamic engagements are initiated that: Acknowledge Native/First Nations rights to self-define the access and sharing routes for their cultural heritage; Build capacity within institutions that know their own difficulties with these …
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Reciprocal Curation Workflow
The act of labeling does disrupt the digital workflow, but for these types of collections this is a necessary moment that has substantial benefits for all stakeholders involved. From a community perspective it adds critical information about ongoing responsibilities to care for and protect culturally sensitive information, as well as to add Indigenous voice into …
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TK Labeling
The TK Labeling initiative is a strategy for making visible and rendering active already existing community practices that have been historically lost, silenced or missing from collections themselves. Added at any time during the digital lifecycle, the flexibility in this labeling strategy is in its capacity to transform each stage of the digital lifecycle in …
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Traditional Digital Content Lifecycle
The traditional digital content lifecycle as represented in this image is a cycle unto itself – what matters most in this representation model is the process, not the multiple histories and contexts that inform the way in which content has entered into this digital life cycle. For Native/First Nations collections these histories and contexts continue …
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