Keynote and Events

Keynote Address:
Tuesday, May 7 @ 5:00pm

Whitelaw Room 245, McLaughlin Library

A Gift from the Ancestors:
Traditional Knowledge and the Decolonization of Libraries

Kimberly Christen
Washington State University
 

Decolonization has become a touchpoint for redefining the practices, policies, and procedures within collecting institutions. This talk explores how traditional knowledge can become a point of collaboration between Indigenous, First Nations, Aboriginal and Native American communities and libraries and archives as they work to undo settler histories and recreate libraries and archives as places of relation within networks of obligation and respect.

Dr. Christen directs the Plateau Peoples’ Web Portal, a collaboratively curated site of Plateau cultural materials,  of the Mukurtu CMS, a content management system and community digital archive platform built around the particular needs of indigenous peoples globally, and is co-Director with Jane Anderson of Local Contexts, an educational website for innovative traditional knowledge licenses and labels for indigenous cultural heritage.