Differential Access for the Ethical Stewardship of Cultural and Digital Heritage through Mukurtu.net

This is a pdf copy of the PPT slides used for this presentation in the SAA symposium. In July, 2015, the number of federally recognized tribes increased to 567 with the inclusion of the Pamunkey tribe in Virginia. Among other benefits, Tribal Nations have the right to self govern, and as such, the right to determine how best to curate and manage their own heritage and histories. To put this number into perspective, there are currently only 193 member states (countries) in the United Nations, 183 of which voted to recognize the rights of Indigenous Peoples worldwide in 2012 (the US voted against). As we consider models for the long-term curation of digital archaeological data, we take into account the voices of tribal communities and their diverse opinions on the sharing protocols of digital cultural heritage items on the Web. To this end we have developed Mukurtu.net, the hosted service for Mukurtu CMS 2.0, an open source platform designed specifically to address some of the challenges of the diversity of sharing protocols and archiving for the long-term. In this presentation we will explore how community-based agile software development enables the long-term sustainable sharing and curation of indigenous cultural property through the active participation of the communities and those worldwide who benefit from reciprocal knowledge exchange.