0.21 Negotiating the cultural turn as universities adopt a corporate  (Page 2/5)

This brief response will venture answers to these questions in more specific terms of our project to build an archive based on Native American cultures that trace their ancestral origins back to the oral tradition. I certainly cannot speak for all the scholars working on digital projects with Native American communities, of which there are many. Perhaps by sharing a few stories of institutional obstacles encountered along the way, innovative end runs, and the difficult choices that loom on the horizon, this response can explore new models for sustainability that help break down the digital divide, empower historically underrepresented communities, and further expand the field of digital humanities.

Obstacles overcome, opportunities as yet unrealized

It is always important to begin any discussion of the Gibagadinamaagoom [GEE-bug-ah-DEEN-ah-mah-GOOM] (“To Bring to Life, to Sanction, to Give Authority”) archive by acknowledging that it is not my project. To the Ojibwe people with whom I work, I am an oshkabewis, a novice in terms of understanding the old ways, but one who listens intently and respectfully to the elders deeply enough to work in partnership. This partnership includes Medicine Men, Sacred Pipe Carriers, language-keepers, deans and faculty at four tribal and community colleges, filmmakers, and hundreds of Ojibwe students across northern Minnesota. It also includes august cultural institutions like the University of Pennsylvania’s Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, the Minnesota Historical Society, and the American Philosophical Society. Our goal, from the outset, has been to build a digital archive based on the seven sacred directions of Ojibwe cosmology, featuring videos of Ojibwe elders and teachers speaking in unscripted narratives about topics of their own choosing, to be used by Ojibwe high school and tribal college students for language preservation and cultural revitalization. While a worthy goal and a never-ending adventure, one can imagine the difficulties trying to sell a project with a name no administrator can pronounce to the technological powers-that-be at the University of Pennsylvania.

The first, crucial phase of development, then, took place far outside of the academy’s ivy-covered walls. In 2006, we received an NEH Humanities Initiatives with Tribal Colleges grant, through White Earth Tribal and Community College, that allowed us to develop the Gibagadinamaagoom prototype website. Our goal was to build a site in accordance with Ojibwe traditional codes of conduct. Upon entering the site, the visitor is greeted by a prayer in the Ojibwe language recited by Jimmy Jackson, a highly respected Medicine Man who passed away many years ago—a voice from the spirit world. The prayer is accompanied by a video of Larry Aitken, an Ojibwe Sacred Pipe Carrier, explaining the importance of offering tobacco before asking the elders to share their wisdom. The visitor thus begins his or her journey of understanding in keeping with traditional Ojibwe codes of conduct. The navigation system is based on the seven sacred directions of the Ojibwe cosmology—East, West, South, North, Mother Earth, Star World, where ancestral spirits abide, and the Above World occupied by the Gitchi Manidoo (“Great Spirit”). This complex, culturally inspirited interface could only have been realized by working in close consultation with our advisory board of Ojibwe wisdom-keepers. It is not, obviously, the easiest site for a non-Native person to use. The prayer in Ojibwe is untranslated because the elders wanted non-Native viewers to realize from the outset that there would be some things they would not understand. There is also very little writing in the seven directions part of the site. The idea was that the Ojibwe people should be allowed to speak for themselves, without a non-Native ethnographer (me) explaining what they were saying. The site, therefore, hews very closely to the oral tradition. And when it is shown in an Ojibwe context—in Quiz Bowl competitions, for example, when wisdom-keepers show the videos to Ojibwe high school and tribal college students—it is accompanied by oratory, an ancient art form that augments and enlivens the digital technology. It is interesting to note here how the Ojibwe wisdom-keepers recontextualize digital technology-- utilizing it as part of a cultural continuum that can be traced back hundreds, if not thousands, of years. From their perspective, digital videos record the oral tradition much more accurately than print media ever did.