Guardians of our knowledge

UNESCO established the Memory of the World Programme in 1992. The work of this programme has been guided by the 2015 UNESCO Recommendation Concerning the Preservation of, and Access to, Documentary Heritage Including in Digital Form. Along the same lines as the UNESCO World Heritage Convention, this Recommendation provides a framework for the national and international registers to formally recognize outstanding examples of documentary heritage that inform our knowledge of our shared humanity.

In 2017 the Canadian Commission for UNESCO (CCUNESCO) established a national advisory committee for the Memory of the World Programme, as well as a Canadian register.

The 2015 Recommendation that guides Memory of the World has formally integrated both the 2007 United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) and the 1993 Mataatua Declaration on Cultural and Intellectual Property Rights of Indigenous Peoples. In response, the Canadian Advisory Committee has actively developed a framework that recognizes these two Declarations and the specific ways of knowing that inform how Indigenous communities preserve and disseminate their knowledge.

This article presents an overview of the Canadian Advisory Committee and the Memory of the World guidelines that inform its work.

Implementing the Memory of the World Programme in Canada

The Canadian Advisory Committee for Memory of the World operates under CCUNESCO, which was established in 1957 to coordinate government and non-governmental bodies in education, science, culture, and communication with the work of UNESCO at the international and domestic levels. The Memory of the World Programme falls under the auspices of the Communication and Information Sector at CCUNESCO, which began, as early as 2001, to actively encourage the National Archives of Canada (now Library and Archives Canada) and the Department of Canadian Heritage to establish a Canadian Memory of the World Register. CCUNESCO further advocated for the establishment of a Canadian Advisory Committee composed of experts who could recommend collections for recognition by the Memory of the World International Register.

Canada had been involved in the UNESCO Memory of the World Programme since its inception in 1992 through the leadership of Jean-Pierre Wallot, the National Archivist of Canada from 1985 until 1997. Wallot served as the first Chairman of the International Memory of the World Advisory Committee from 1993 to 1998, well before the establishment of a Canadian counterpart in 2017. Several factors influenced this delay in creating a Canadian Advisory Committee, including debate within the Canadian archival community about the elevation of specific collections based on their national significance. It was argued that every aspect of documentary heritage was valuable based on the distinct narratives that were contained within these collections.

Encouragement to develop a Canadian Advisory Committee came when the Musée de la civilisation du Québec approached CCUNESCO for their support to nominate the Quebec Seminary Collection for inclusion on the Memory of the World International Register. Shortly afterwards, the Archives of Manitoba approached the Commission requesting support for the nomination of the Hudson’s Bay Company Archives. Ian Wilson, who had succeeded Wallot as National Archivist of Canada, was familiar with these collections and agreed it was the appropriate time, and an ad hoc Canadian Memory of the World Advisory Committee was established in 2017 to support their international recognition. The committee included ex officio representation from both Library and Archives Canada (LAC) and Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec (BAnQ).

Recognizing Indigenous forms of documentary heritage

Following the development of the Canada Memory of the World Register, the advisory committee began to question how Indigenous forms of documentary heritage would be considered by the International Memory of the World Advisory Committee, especially forms that were materially distinct from paper-based archival collections, such as wampum belts, oral histories, birch bark scrolls (wiigwaasabak), or petroglyphs. The Canadian committee approached its international counterpart regarding the commemoration of wampum belts, specifically.

The International Advisory Committee affirmed that wampum belts, wiigwaasabak, and other forms of documentary heritage were applicable for recognition. It further affirmed that Indigenous forms of documentary heritage required flexibility in the nomination process as a result of specific cultural contexts.

CCUNESCO and the Canadian Advisory Committee for Memory of the World acknowledge that the national recognition of Indigenous documentary heritage may not be a priority for Indigenous peoples. With this in mind, it is very clear this programme can nonetheless provide us all with a better understanding of the diverse ways of comprehending the world around us. The Memory of the World Programme was established within a westernized framework that tries to quantify ‘significance,’ but it is recognized that Indigenous documentary heritage can only be truly understood through its own nation-specific cultural contexts. It is imperative that national and international advisory committees review how they evaluate Indigenous documentary heritage in order to respect Indigenous cultural contexts and ensure that we can comprehend the realities of our shared global narrative. Fortunately, steps have been taken to equip advisory committees for this challenge.

Memory of the World, the Mataatua Declaration, and UNDRIP

As noted above, the Memory of the World Programme is guided by the 2015 UNESCO Recommendation Concerning the Preservation of, and Access to, Documentary Heritage Including in Digital Form. It recognizes that Indigenous peoples have unique cultural guidelines that regulate access to their documentary heritage. Noting this, both the Mataatua Declaration on Cultural and Intellectual Property Rights of Indigenous Peoples and UNDRIP were unanimously integrated into the 2015 Recommendation.

The integration of these declarations into the Recommendation presents some exciting opportunities when recognizing Indigenous documentary heritage through the Memory of the World Programme. This can be seen when considering the mandate of preserving documentary heritage and ensuring that collections are made publicly accessible.

The concept of preserving documentary heritage is certainly applicable for Indigenous communities. While Indigenous knowledge remains, the impacts of forced assimilation (including through the Indian Residential School System) are clearly evident. This can be seen when considering the loss of Indigenous languages, which were specifically targeted through the residential school system. A 2018 study found that 75% of Indigenous languages within Canada are considered to be ‘endangered’ and at risk of a break in their uninterrupted transmission to future generations. [1] Indigenous languages are not just a form of expression – each phrase contains complex cultural information about the relationship between a speaker and their traditional territory. This was noted through a United Nations Proclamation declaring 2019 as the International Year of Indigenous Languages, and the subsequent decision to declare the decade beginning in 2022 as the International Decade for Indigenous Languages.

Documentary heritage, including dictionaries, lexicons, and other resource books, plays a vital role within communities to maintain, revitalize, and preserve Indigenous languages. Recognizing this, the Canadian Advisory Committee made a public call for the nomination of collections relating to Indigenous languages.

Efforts to preserve Indigenous documentary heritage are also significant when considering how this knowledge relates to certain geological or ecological features. The information contained within these records may relate to specific plants or animals or may include oral narratives that can only be told in specific locations, relying upon geological features as mnemonic devices or memory aids. While it may seem difficult to comprehend how place-based documentary heritage can be integrated into a program such as Memory of the World, the inclusion of the Gwich’in Social and Cultural Institute Fonds in the Canada Memory of the World Register, for example, demonstrates that this can be accomplished while recognizing nation-specific cultural protocols.

The Memory of the World Programme requires that inscriptions are made publicly accessible, which may be problematic given that some aspects of Indigenous knowledge are governed by community protocols that require such knowledge to be maintained within specific nations or familial networks. This, of course, would be based upon a subjective or literal understanding of accessibility to documentary heritage that doesn’t recognize the cultural specificity of the item or collection itself. The fact that both UNDRIP and the Mataatua Declaration are integrated into the recommendation guiding Memory of the World offers flexibility in regard to the accessibility of Indigenous documentary heritage through the recognition of Indigenous peoples’ rights to protect and control their own knowledge.

The National and International Advisory Committees therefore have the opportunity and obligation to assess the concept of ‘accessibility’ based on the distinct cultural contexts of the documentary heritage in question. This flexibility allows Indigenous documentary heritage to be fully integrated into an international program that might otherwise have been constrained by its pre-established cultural biases.

The Canadian Advisory Committee has fully integrated these principles into the nomination form and evaluation criteria for proposed additions to the Canada Memory of the World Register. The current nomination form used by the Canadian Advisory Committee reflects an awareness that Indigenous communities may have cultural frameworks that govern access to their documentary heritage.

Revisions to the nomination form were the result of open discussions about how a program of commemoration rooted in Western practices could appropriately conceptualize, respect, and integrate Indigenous perspectives. It is understood that this wording will inevitably change as best practices relating to the recognition of Indigenous documentary heritage are integrated.

Conclusion

Since its establishment in 2017, the Canadian Advisory Committee for Memory of the World has proactively developed best practices for the recognition of Indigenous documentary heritage. While we know that the concept of quantifying significance associated with documentary heritage is often antithetical to Indigenous knowledge and ways of knowing, it is our belief that the integration of both UNDRIP and the Mataatua Declaration give the Memory of the World Programme the flexibility that is required to respect the nation-specific cultural context of each item or collection that is nominated. Importantly, we recognize that our present understanding of Indigenous documentary heritage is based on what has been nominated so far. Our understanding will undoubtedly grow as the National Register continues to develop.

[1] McIvor, O. (2018). Indigenous languages in Canada: What you need to know. Ottawa, ON, Canada: CCUNESCO.

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Author

Cody Groat is the Chair of the Canadian Advisory Committee for Memory of the World. He is an Assistant Professor in the Department of History and the Indigenous Studies Program at Western University in London, Ontario. He is Kanyen'kehaka (Mohawk) and a band member of Six Nations of the Grand River. He can be contacted through cgroat@uwo.ca.