The Rematriation Project
The Rematriation Project aims to provide targeted, culturally appropriate capacity building in Inuit communities in NW Alaska that hones, develops, and complements local skills related to digital archiving and digital literacies.
We have not published anything yet.
Experiential learning methods, community-engaged collaborative research, cultural humility
The Rematriation Project is led by an Inuit-led and Inuit-serving tribal organization, Aqqaluk Trust, in the frontline hub-community of Kotzebue, Alaska. Kotzebue is a rural Iñupiat coastal community located above the Arctic Circle that serves as a central location for 10 surrounding villages.This region is currently facing the devastating effects of rapidly accelerating climate change. Tribal communities are encountering more frequent destructive storms, fire, and flooding, putting them and their tribal histories and land stewardship at great risk. Making accessible digital versions of these valuable and threatened knowledges is imperative. Creating digital archives is one part of the solution, developing local capacities for digital archiving is another. The Rematriation Project aims to provide targeted, culturally appropriate capacity building that hones, develops, and complements local skills related to digital archiving and digital literacies.
Iñupiat Iḷitqusiat--the Iñupiaq Values--is our ethical framework (see Itchuaqiyaq, 2021, "Iñupiat Iḷitqusiat: An Indigenist Ethics Approach for Working with Marginalized Knowledges in Technical Communication"). This framework comes from the community we are serving toward their own self-determined needs. We are combatting exploitive, extractive research through having strong, in-community Iñupiaq leadership on this project as well as strong Iñupiaq academic leadership on this project.
We believe that the wisdom of our Elders, as communicated through the Iñupiat Iḷitqusiat, will help us restore and replenish and re-empower our people. We are using this experience to model equitable coproduction of knowledge work that engages with and works to shift destructive and harmful research practices of the present and past.
We are creating community digital archives.
We are reporting to the associated tribal organization on a regular basis. We are creating community digital archives that, if the communities are willing, will be publicly available. We are also writing accessible publications with our community partner.
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Digital archiving, technical and professional communication