Digital knowledge sharing: perspectives on use, impacts, risks, and best practices according to Native American and Indigenous community-based researchers

Digital “returns” or “knowledge sharing”—the sharing of digital copies of archival collections with descendant Native and Indigenous communities—has become a key mode of broadening archival access while embracing community-driven curatorship and stewardship models. Yet, little is known about how the products of such programs—namely in the form of digital surrogates—are actually discovered, accessed, used, and circulated “on the ground” in Indigenous community contexts. This paper discusses a project that draws on qualitative interviews and ethnographic methods to fill this gap. I explore the uses and impacts of digitized collections from diverse community-based perspectives, taking the American Philosophical Society’s Digital Knowledge Sharing partnerships as a case study. Through semi-structured interviews with 36 participants and three site visits, the project documents Native community perspectives on the uses, meanings, and circulation of digitized collections in their home communities. I share major findings in eight categories: (1) Barriers to use and access; (2) Circulation of digital surrogate sharing; (3) Formats of digital copies (4) Use in wide-ranging community contexts (5) Benefits of digitization (6) Limits to digital affordances (7) Risks involved in digitization; and (8) Best Practices for archives going forward. This project provides insights for the broader professional communities in libraries, archives, and museums in order to develop best practices and policies for generating relevant and culturally sensitive digitization and digital sharing projects.