Digital Archive of

African Indian Relations

                  

Towards a Digital History of the African/Native Experience

 

For years, I have wanted to do a digital archive of text, sound recordings, images, and visual recordings of stories from blacks, indians, and black indians about their collective experience. I have carried a camera around with me to pow-wows and such and have taken pictures. However, I have an even more expansive vision of what this could be. I will float these ideas out to see what you think.

 The goal of this project is to build an online digital archive available for release in conjunction with the "Shifting Borders" conference at the University of Kansas. We could set up two research centers:  one at Kansas for the west and the other at UNC for the east.  We work with the University of Kansas Digital Initiatives Program and the UNC SILS Digital Project Repository on getting these projects online. We can have mirror websites at the two schools. We want to collect and store preexisting materials as well as put together a program that sends students out into the communities with digital recording devices to record and preserve the experiences of persons of African/Indian descent in their communities. We get camcorders and digital voice recorders and send undergraduate or graduate students out to do research and collect the digital histories. Perhaps we approach i.t. companies and/or multimedia hardware/software production companies for the tools. We can also work with other institutions where we know people interested in this area (Suggestions: Dartmouth, UMichigan, UOklahoma, MIT, etc). It might be nice to even work with high schools from the reservations and Indian communities. Anyhow, we collect, arrange, and display these materials online. We also develop lesson plans and teaching tools to use with these archives. I think this is something that foundations would fund.

Anyhow, the purpose of this website is to explore the mission, technology, ethics, logistics, sponsorship, responsibilities et. al. for such a project...where to begin...where to go...how to do it. It is basically an online brainstorming session and if the brains don't storm...then we blame the weatherman. If they do storm, we could be in for a pretty interesting ride.

Right now, this is a pipe dream [pun intended]. However, to move it from a pipe dream to a dream realized -- we have to begin to put these ideas down on paper in a manner that is structured, practical and most of all feasible. The ultimate goal is a grant proposal for the Ford Foundation who funds the "Shifting Borders" project. I think a proposal for something like this begins with an instructional design which focuses on mission, model, methodology, implementation, and evaluation. From there, persons whose expertise is grant writing can put together the proposal.