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digital heritage, knowledge
networks, and source
communities:
Understanding Digital Objects in aMelanesian Society
GraemeWereuniversity of queensland
abstract
This article investigates digital heritage technologies from
a Melanesian perspective. It explores—in the context of
New Ireland, Papua New Guinea—the types of values
placed on digital surrogates as a means to engage critically
with recent debates on “digital” or “virtual” repatriation. It
raises the question as to whether digital knowledge
resources such as 3D digital objects are really seen as sec-
ondary or “second best” to the original or whether digital
technologies reproduce, in new form, an economy of
objects that sustains knowledge and revival practices. As a
way to address this, the Mobile Museum pilot project was
launched in January 2012 to help support the Nalik people
of New Ireland reconnecting with and researching their
cultural heritage in Queensland museums. This article
demonstrates, in contrast to recent calls for an ideological
return to the status of the museum object as put forward
by Conn (2010), how ethnographic objects should be
understood in terms of their performativity, mobility, and
virtuality, which render them operative far beyond the
physical realms of museum institutions. [digital heritage,
digital repatriation, ethnographic collections, cultural revi-
talization, Melanesia]
Increased accessibility to digital technologies and
mobile telecommunications in rural and remote loca-
tions has radically transformed the ways in which
source communities access and engage with ethno-
graphic collections for the purposes of cultural revi-
talization (Phillips 2013; Srinivasan and Huang
2005). The transfer of ethnographic collections into
digital formats together with the launching of digital
platforms such as interactive websites, virtual exhibi-
tion walkthroughs, and online catalogues and
archives has made hundreds of thousands of objects,
films, photographs, sound recordings, and archival
documents available online and on demand to those
with access to a computer and the Internet. While this
reflects the participatory culture of current museum
projects (e.g., Ames 2003; Herle 2003; Phillips 2013;
Weil 2007), and in some cases leads to a sense of
“completeness” through the recovery of lost objects
(Rowlands 2004), critics argue that digital heritage
technologies simply replicate the dominant power
structures of collecting institutions and of technology
whereby curators control the release of digital content
and the original objects remain firmly within the col-
lecting institution.
In this article, my concern is to investigate these
assumptions through an exploration of the new econ-
omy of digital heritage objects in rural and remote
areas of New Ireland, Papua New Guinea (Figure 1),
and reveal the dynamics at play.1 Using my involve-
ment in a digital heritage project as a focus, I discuss
the values placed on digital surrogates as a means to
engage critically with recent debates on “digital” or
“virtual” repatriation. I ask whether digital knowl-
edge resources such as 3D digital objects are really
seen as secondary or “second best” to the original or
whether digital technologies reproduce, in new form,
an economy of objects that sustains knowledge and
revival practices. I will show how, among the Nalik
people of New Ireland, 3D digital objects provide a
resource to re-create a sense of order, one situated in
localized discourses on modernity, development, and
governance. This article demonstrates, in contrast to
recent calls for an ideological return to the status of
the museum object as put forward by Steven Conn
(2010), how ethnographic objects should be under-
stood in terms of their performativity, mobility, and
virtuality, which render them operative far beyond
the physical realms of museum institutions.
Digital Technologies and Source
Communities
The rapid growth of affordable, portable digital imag-
ing technologies, such as 3D scanners and high-qual-
ity digital cameras, has redefined the way museums
provide access to and engagement with ethnographic
collections that may otherwise have remained con-
demned to life in the controlled environment of a
museum storeroom. Digital technologies allow for
new ways of knowing about cultural heritage, offering
opportunities for education, regeneration, and com-
munity empowerment (Christen 2006; McTavish
2005; Ngata 2012; Parry 2007; Simpson 2009). The
museum anthropology
Museum Anthropology, Vol. 37, Iss. 2, pp. 133–143© 2014 by the American Anthropological Association. All rights reserved.DOI: 10.1111/muan.12058
“recoding” of the museum, according to Parry
(2007), signals not just an institutional shift that is
inclusive of digital technologies, but it significantly
reframes the museum as a site for the digital encoding
of cultural works.
According to Ramesh Srinivasan (2012), critical
studies of digital technology use among source com-
munities remain largely underdeveloped. This could
be due, as Abungu (2002) explains in relation to
Africa, to the lack of digital connectivity in rural and
remote areas. This appears to be changing quite rap-
idly, however, as is suggested by an expanding body
of literature within anthropology, museum studies,
and information studies that has begun to explore the
creation of digital archives, virtual museums, and dig-
ital knowledge resources by source communities to
safeguard their cultural heritage (cf. Basu 2011; de
Bruijn et al. 2009; Hennessy 2009). These studies
demonstrate how source communities are appropri-
ating digital technologies to support cultural self-rep-
resentation by creating and managing websites, video
projects, and so forth (Srinivasan 2009a, 2009b). One
of the most well-known examples is the Reciprocal
Research Network (RRN) in Canada. The RRN, co-
developed by a group of First Nations groups and the
University of British Columbia’s Museum of Anthro-
pology, facilitates online access to and research of
museum collections originating from First Nations
people from the Northwest Coast and British Colum-
bia. It has enabled stakeholders to build their own
collections, collaborate on shared projects, record
stories, upload files, hold discussions, research
museum collections, and create social networks. This
collaboration—described as a “Partnership of Peo-
ples”—has established a system of governance that
ensures the needs of the source communities as well
as museums are taken into account at all stages of the
development (Phillips 2013; Rowley 2010).
Critics have questioned the capacity of digital
technologies to adequately encode the complexities of
cultural forms. Some, such as Brown (2005), cite
issues of governance as problematic: the Internet may
infringe on community values and access protocols as
it is built on the Western liberal ideology of open
access for all. Others question the cultural compati-
bility of digital technologies to indigenous knowledge
systems. Verran and Christie (2007) raise this issue in
their discussion of the performative dimension of
knowledge among indigenous Australians. They
claim that Aboriginal narratives about the landscape
do not transfer easily into digital formats because
indigenous knowledge has to be performed in order
for it to become operative. This, they assert, poses
challenges for digital technologies that are structured
as representational systems. These cases raise obvious
questions about the constitution of indigenous
knowledge, how digital technologies codify knowl-
edge, and the manner in which such knowledge is
transacted.
Other scholars view digital technologies in a more
positive light. They stress that through community
collaboration and consultation, museums are able to
design digital platforms that are “respectful” (Chris-
ten 2011) to cultural protocols by taking into account
gatekeepers and managed access to knowledge (cf.
Harrison 1992). In elaborating on her own research
in the Great Lakes region of North America and the
establishment of the Great Lakes Research Alliance
for the Study of Aboriginal Arts and Cultures (GRA-
SAC), Phillips claims that digital technologies offer
new opportunities for research and cultural revitali-
zation and mitigate “the separation of people from
heritage and the enforced losses of traditional knowl-
edge that continue to have serious consequences for
Figure 1. Map of Papua New Guinea with New Ireland to the northeast of
the mainland. (Source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Papua_-
New_Guinea_map.png, accessed March 27, 2014.)
digital objects in a melanesian society
134
Aboriginal identity” (2013:295). Such approaches
characterize the collaborative and community-needs
driven approach of digital heritage technologies that
set out to meet the requirements of indigenous and
source communities. Kimberly Christen (2006)
describes how, in Australia, a digital archive was
established in collaboration with Pitjantjatjara com-
munity members who were living in dispersed loca-
tions. Through a consultation process, the archive
was designed to operate within cultural protocols for
the viewing and circulation of objects and images in a
manner that satisfied the needs of the community
who wanted to gain access to historical photographs
and images of museum objects. For example, Chris-
ten (2006:58) describes how varying levels of access
and editing rights are assigned to community mem-
bers. Using a password, knowledgeable people can
add, edit, or delete informational units considered to
be particularly sensitive. Christen’s work emphasizes
how digital archives and websites are considered
accessible and adaptable to remote locations and
culturally appropriate for the digital return of some
cultural material held in museums. “Digital” repatria-
tion, proponents claim, can help safeguard cultural
heritage for future generations, especially when it is
unfeasible to return physical objects. Moreover, Phil-
lips (2013:287) explains how digital repatriation is
not intended to replace the physical transfer of the
original object. Rather, digital return supports new
knowledge and understanding of cultural heritage
through the “first-level” repatriation of image and
text.
Ironically, the rise of interest in digital heritage
technologies on the part of source communities raises
important questions about the status of museum
objects and their primacy in terms of originality and
authenticity. In many parts of Melanesia, the attitude
toward physical objects housed in museums is often
deeply ambivalent if not fearful, especially if an indi-
vidual has physical or visual contact that is considered
too close (e.g., Kingston 2007; Wright 2008). In these
contexts, digital objects as a form of digital simulacra
may not be seen as a poor substitute for the authentic-
ity of the “real thing” but as an independent source of
potential potency manifested through their capacity
to be transformed into physical objects through acts
of remaking. Although digital heritage technologies
intend to impart a life-like experience of the actual
object with their use of high-resolution photography,
3D environments, and image handling tools to pro-
duce a kind of “total documentation” (and thus can
be distinguished from photographs), this experience
is perceived as being different, in a beneficial way,
from that of engaging with the tangible object itself. I
argue that among the Nalik people of New Ireland,
3D digital objects are perceived in a distant and less
threatening manner than would be shown toward the
object because the digital objects cannot be touched
or sensed in the same way as tangible objects. This
distancing, I argue, allows the possibility for the
image to be internalized and hence facilitates the rec-
lamation, recovery, and reintegration of cultural
knowledge. Moreover, given that New Ireland is an
image-based society in which cultural knowledge and
political rights are transacted through the managed
display of ritual images (Kuechler 2002), the return
and reintegration of ancestral images in digital for-
mats has added value and effect. I show how renewed
access to images offers tangible opportunities for the
Nalik people to re-create a new social order, one that
is embedded in localized discourses about develop-
ment, modernity, and governance. I demonstrate this
through an analysis of the Mobile Museum pilot pro-
ject, which I have been involved in with the Nalik
community.
The Nalik People of Northern New Ireland
The Nalik people of northern New Ireland are a group
of around five thousand Austronesian speakers who
live along the coastal region of the island. Nalik soci-
ety is organized around an exogamous matrilineal
clan system named after local species of birds. The
region is famous for a complex set of funerary rites
known as malangan that may take many years to
complete. These rites involve feasting and competi-
tive exchanges to honor the dead. As well as referring
to funerary rites, the term malangan also denotes the
carved wooden sculptures and woven effigies that are
displayed during the culminating period of ritual
events. The sculptures and effigies are believed to
arrest, contain, and release the souls of the deceased
toward the ancestral domain and are thus perceived
to be instrumental in finalizing the work for the dead
(see Kuechler 2002; Lewis 1969; Were 2010). The
carvings—through the integration of locally recog-
nizable forms and totemic emblems—also make
digital objects in a melanesian society
135
mnemonic reference to clan histories and the land-
scape and are crucial to rights of succession and the
transmission of cultural knowledge.
Specialist carvers (aitek) in the communities are
commissioned by land-holding clans to produce the
malangan carvings for use in mortuary ceremonies.
The carving appears to the carver in the form of a
dream, which he then reproduces frommemory while
in ritual seclusion. The finished carving is kept in a
secret location until the final events of the mortuary
feasting cycle, when carvings are revealed to partici-
pants who have congregated in the village hamlet to
partake in the ritual events. Once the carving is
revealed from behind a specially constructed leaf
enclosure, people walk toward the carving, inspect its
design, and lay shell money at its feet. At no point do
they touch the carving. Susanne Kuechler (2002)
describes how the revelatory act is seen as the sym-
bolic death of the carving because after its display, the
carving is removed from public display and then left
to rot or is burned. Kuechler (1997) states how the
carvings were also sold to Western collectors as
another way to “kill” the carving, explaining the large
number of malangan in ethnographic museums. The
ritual killing of the figure leads to the shedding of the
image as it is internalized by those present as a record
of social events and clan relationships. The carving
may be revealed again later, when it is remade and
displayed at another mortuary feast. Significantly,
according to Kuechler, value is not attributed to the
carving but to the memory of its imagery and to the
right over its reproduction, which is transacted in the
exchanges.
With over a century of Methodist and Catholic
missionary influence and activity in New Ireland,
however, Naliks say that the malangan tradition has
become dissipated and claim that elements of it may
have been lost altogether. The elaborate resources
devoted to malangan feasting are no longer a feature
of ritual activities in contemporary society (see also
Lewis 1979); rather, Naliks use the expression sotka-
tim kastom—or shortcutting kastom—as a way to
describe how ritual protocols and proceedings are
now pared down to a set of key ceremonies in the rites
for the dead. The term kastom—widely discussed by
Melanesian anthropologists—in the New Ireland
context relates to traditional practices that are under-
stood to derive from the precolonial past, whether
invented, idealized, imagined, or revised. People may
live according to kastom, but they may also reflect
upon, evaluate, discuss, dispute, and modify it (Har-
rison 2000:663).
In Nalik society, any reflection and innovation of
kastom is clearly conveyed in the expression sotkatim
kastom. In the case of funerary rituals, this phrase
refers to the hire rather than the commission of new
carvings. This contemporary practice now entails that
carvers hold on to a small collection of malangan
carvings that they lend to organizing clans for a fee
during mortuary feasting. This reduces the financial
resources committed to the carving of malangan fig-
ures (i.e., sotkatim or shortcutting), as described by
anthropologists (e.g., Kuechler 2002; Lewis 1969).
Because there is a reduced demand on the commis-
sioning of new malangan carvings, it is inevitable that
there is less work for specialist carvers to undertake.
Although museum collections contain a variety of
different types of malangan carvings from the late
19th century onwards in the form of figures, birds,
friezes, and canoes (see Gunn and Peltier 2006),
declining production means that only a limited range
of carvings are now produced by specialist carvers.
Many of the malangan carvings found in museum
collections are no longer produced. Even when some
carvings are produced anew, they lack the highly
incised style of the past. As a result of these changes,
there is serious concern among Naliks that some clans
may have forgotten how to reproduce their malangan
carvings as well as the stories and songs that accom-
pany their display.
Dangerous Heritage
In the Nalik community, there have been many dis-
cussions about how a return or display of museum
collections would help sustain traditional knowledge.
One approach they explored, which has been repeat-
edly discussed since I first began conducting field
research in the Nalik community in 2000, was the
possibility of establishing a local museum or cultural
center that could showcase New Ireland culture and
provide a community focus for reinvigorating carving
traditions among the younger generation. At one
stage in 2008, the provincial government even pro-
vided money to develop a site for a museum, but the
money mysteriously disappeared, much to the frus-
tration of the National Cultural Commission in
digital objects in a melanesian society
136
Papua New Guinea as well as the Nalik community.
Indeed, so problematic and contentious has any pro-
posal been to establish a museum that a split occurred
between two key Nalik supporters of the project,
which meant that any further discussions have
reached deadlock.
Yet, behind the veneer of politics lies the crucial
question about the display and safekeeping of malan-
gan sculptures. Many senior Nalik men revealed in
conversation that any physical return of malangan
would be entirely problematic for the communities.
Given that most museum artifacts lack details of
provenance, the Nalik community claimed that it
would be difficult and problematic to return carvings
without knowing the rightful clan owners. Clan lea-
der (maimai) Martin Kombeng was interviewed on
Australian SBS World News and related the problems
of returning malangan carvings to the Nalik people.
He explained, “Most of the originating clans who
own those [malangan] masks, maybe they cannot
remember. Now you might as well leave them where
they are.”2
Malangan carvings are vessels that are supposed to
disappear after their public display (Kuechler 1997).
Many Naliks stated how the current generation no
longer knew how to manage carvings produced a cen-
tury before because the carvings were potentially
powerful entities. In one instance, after viewing an
image of a tatanua mask, collected by the colonial
officer Romilly in the late 19th century, some senior
men were adamant that the mask should never touch
New Ireland shores again. It was far too potent, they
explained, as it came from a time when ancestral
power was considered especially powerful. I witnessed
this reaction again when two senior Nalik men viewed
the dozen or so malangan carvings in the New Ireland
collections at the QueenslandMuseum in Australia in
November of 2012. Adam Kaminiel, a malangan car-
ver from the Nalik-speaking area, remarked, “I still
have goose-bumps.”3 For the duration of his visit,
Kaminiel refused to handle any of the artifacts,
explaining that because these artifacts were from
ancestral times, they had hidden powers. A similar
scenario is described in Sean Kingston’s (2007) illu-
minating essay about a cultural center in southern
New Ireland. Calling museum objects “dangerous
heritage,” Kingston points out that objects that have
been ceremonially killed are supposed to remain
absent. The Nalik people are not equipped to deal
with the return of carvings from the past that they
assume to be potent, and any project to establish a
museum naturally appears to stall. Such malangan
carvings, at least in the context of the Nalik-speaking
area of New Ireland, are best placed in museums in
Australia, North America, or Europe.
Like other ethnohistorical projects in Melanesia
(e.g., Bell 2003; Wright 2008), books containing
images of museum objects as well as reproductions of
old black-and-white photographs capturing local
people in a variety of poses or activities during the era
of colonial science raise much speculation in terms of
identifying people and traditional artifacts from New
Ireland’s past. One issue for the Nalik community,
however, has been the limitations on accessing these
cultural resources. Books and photographs are rarely
circulated among the community and generally stay
in the houses of those who take on custodian duties.
The high humidity and salt content in the air makes
printed matter last only a few years before its eventual
decay. In addition, people in the Nalik community
often complain that photographs are “not enough,”
as the static form of representation does not allow for
a full understanding of the topological nature of the
carvings. As Kuechler (1999) states, what is important
about the form of the carving is not just the motifs
and totemic emblems revealed on the surface but also
the negative space in between, the intertwining planes
of the figure that reveal the memory of contractual
relations over the land.
It was during a visit to the Nalik community in
2009 that discussions about a digital heritage project
emerged as a way to provide the Naliks with access to
cultural resources and an opportunity to conduct
their research and support cultural revitalization in
the community. The recent establishment of a mobile
telecommunications network across New Ireland—allowing mobile phone connections and Internet
access for the first time—helped foster this discus-
sion. Several senior Naliks who comprise a cultural
elite, many of whom have worked in urban centers
and returned to the rural communities to take on tra-
ditional roles, were aware of the capacities of digital
imaging technologies and were interested in develop-
ing new ways to gain access to their cultural heritage
residing in ethnographic museums worldwide. As a
way to find a culturally appropriate solution, the
digital objects in a melanesian society
137
Mobile Museum pilot project was launched in January
2012 to help support the Nalik people reconnecting
with and researching their cultural heritage in
Queensland museums.
TheMobile Museum Pilot Project
The Mobile Museum pilot project was initiated as a
collaboration among the University of Queensland,
the Queensland Museum, and the Nalik community.
Its principal aim was to build a culturally appropriate
digital application that would allow the Naliks to view
3D digital objects relevant to their cultural heritage.
Senior Nalik men and women wanted to utilize the
availability of digital technologies to create a platform
that allowed for remote access either using a mobile
phone or a laptop computer. As a pilot project, we set
out to produce 3D scans of ten Nalik artifacts.
Ortelia, a Brisbane-based digital design company
specializing in 3D imaging, was contracted to
develop the digital platform for the project. The
company was selected on the basis of its experience
working in cross-cultural environments. Three New
Ireland artifacts were initially photographed at the
Queensland Museum to develop a prototype plat-
form for demonstration purposes in the community.
The imaging technique involved taking multiple
stills of artifacts at incremental angles then stitching
the images together to make a 3D composite before
mounting the digital object within a 3D environ-
ment. The images only required a small amount of
computer memory even though they offered high-
resolution detail, and they were designed to be used
on computer operating systems that would be con-
sidered out of date by Western standards. The pro-
totype of the digital platform allowed digital objects
to be viewed on a computer screen—available in
Nalik villages either by accessing computers in the
local high schools or using laptops in people’s
homes (Figure 2). The prototype version included a
menu of tools enabling viewers to rotate, zoom, and
pan the objects in high-resolution 3D to achieve a
sense of depth and realism (Steinbach 2011).
The project employed a participatory methodol-
ogy to design, build, and implement a culturally
appropriate digital platform suitable for use and
application by the Nalik community. To achieve this,
the project was structured to accommodate several
stages of design consultation and collaborative devel-
opment. The first stage involved running a series of
collaborative design workshops with Nalik commu-
nity members to test the prototype. Ortelia software
designer, Lazaros Kastanis, accompanied me on two
visits to New Ireland.
The first design workshops ran in New Ireland in
June 2012. These workshops took place in collabora-
tion with senior men and women in eight hamlets
along the east coast of the island. They coordinated
the timing of the workshops in their hamlet and
invited their community members to participate.
During the workshops, participants—comprising
men, women, and children of all ages—expressed
their desire to be able to see malangan carvings in 3D
with high-resolution detailed “hot spots” of key parts
of the carvings that were of interest to them. By click-
ing the hot spot with a computer mouse, a high-reso-
lution detail would appear. For many Naliks, this tool
was especially important in understanding the
detailed design of malangan carvings. For example,
many senior men who had knowledge of malangan
were interested in seeing details of incising along the
edges of the carving as well as the “ears” of the figura-
tive sculptures. Other classes of malangan carvings—such as tatanua masks—included leaf materials, and
the men were eager for the application to contain
detailed images so that they could identify the plant
materials. During the design workshops, a number of
Naliks suggested that the application allow for two
artifacts to be compared side by side so that users
could analyze stylistic similarities. Nalik participants
also wanted museum documentation to be included
in the digital platform so users could learn about the
object’s collecting history and contextual informa-
tion. They also felt that an annotation tool was
important to allow users to click on features of objects
Figure 2. Adam Kaminiel views a malangan carving using theMobile
Museum prototype. (Photo by GraemeWere.)
digital objects in a melanesian society
138
and add their own notes. An open text field was
added, and the software allowed this information to
be shared among users. A final concern was the issue
of scale. How were users to know the size of the arti-
facts in the virtual environment? As a solution, a
matchbox—familiar to everyone in the community
—was placed at the foot of each artifact.
Although Srinivasan (2012) has stated that local-
ized debates on digital heritage technologies have
developed from focusing on issues of access and
infrastructure to debating the ethics and cultural sen-
sitivities of providing access, in the Nalik community,
both issues appear to apply. For instance, Lazaros
Kastanis discovered that the reliability of the Digicel
mobile network coverage was one limitation to the
infrastructure in New Ireland. Some areas of the com-
munity had a strong signal while others could not
receive any coverage at all. The local high school had
no signal whatsoever, and because Naliks had tar-
geted school children as key users, it was therefore
decided to develop a CD-ROM based digital platform
with 3D digital objects preloaded on the disk rather
than a web-based platform. In consultation with the
Nalik community, it was agreed that other 3D digital
objects could be uploaded in the future through an
Internet connection and then distributed on CD-
ROMs. It was also stipulated that no restrictions were
to be placed on accessing the digital platform and the
CD-ROMs should be freely distributed to everyone.
The second stage in the consultation process
involved a visit in November 2012 by two senior Na-
lik men, Adam Kaminiel and Martin Kombeng, who
spent ten days in Brisbane working with the collec-
tions at the Queensland Museum and the University
of Queensland Anthropology Museum (Figure 3).
The two men spent several days studying the New Ire-
land collections, working alongside curators from the
two institutions, and selecting objects on the basis of
their Nalik provenance. Their chief concern was to
locate malangan carvings. They chose another ten
objects for imaging in 3D: nine malangan carvings
and one fish trap. The nine carvings were the entire
holdings that the two men had identified as coming
from the Nalik area.4 They selected the tenth artifact,
the fish trap, on the basis of its unusual conical design
and their recognition of its Nalik provenance.
In March 2013, the final digital platform was
delivered by the digital design company Ortelia. The
software was then distributed to key people in the Na-
lik villages along the east coast of the island who
would act as distributors within their respective com-
munities. The handover of CD-ROMs containing the
3D digital objects and digital application took place
at ceremonies throughout the region and was
described by Kaminiel as a form of poxai. Poxai is a
Nalik term to describe a context where one person is
put into a reciprocal relation to another person. In
publicly handing over the digital application, Kamin-
iel made sure that each recipient was poxai to him.
This meant, according to Kaminiel, that if any prob-
lems occurred in the installation or operation of the
software, then the recipient would seek help from Ka-
miniel (Figure 4).
Figure 3. Martin Kombeng inspects some of the malangan carvings from
the storage of the Queensland Museum. (Photo by GraemeWere.)
Figure 4. Adam Kaminiel presents theMobile Museum CD-ROM to
senior man Momos in the Nalik community of Lugagun as other community
members test the software. (Photo by GraemeWere.)
digital objects in a melanesian society
139
Use and Application of Digital Heritage
From her groundbreaking research, Deidre Brown
(2007) has argued that detailed 3D digital images of
Maori artifacts are understood by some Maori people
in the same way as the actual physical objects: both
are said to be imbued with ancestral power and are
thus considered taonga (treasured possessions).
Unlike for the Maori, for the Naliks, digital objects
are innocuous. Rather, returning objects in the form
of digital images alleviates the problem of Naliks hav-
ing to manage the physical object, as discussed previ-
ously. Naliks use the phrase bringim bek (bringing
back) to refer to the return of the images. Their return
was met with much anticipation and excitement
because, as many Nalik people stated, it is the poten-
tial of the images to become transformed into physi-
cal objects through re-creation that gives them their
value in digital return. Thus, 3D digital objects—through their handling and possession by Naliks—are tangible assets. Having access to images is to have
malangan. Having malangan is to have kastom, and
to have kastom is to possess a culture: it is something
to hold on to. This is especially important given the
politicization of kastom in New Ireland and its com-
plex role in acquiring status and resources in the
region (seeWere 2010; see also Foster 1992).
To make this point, I want to describe how the
return of 3D digital objects was considered to be a
form of divelomen (development), a resource—once
delivered to the people—that could be utilized to
strengthen community life. This connection between
digital heritage and development became apparent
even before theMobile Museum pilot project had been
formally launched. In early discussions on setting up
the digital heritage project, senior Nalik men immedi-
ately set about imagining how the digital images
would bring new resources to the region and re-create
a sense of order. One event that took place in Novem-
ber 2011 illustrates this point clearly. The New Ireland
Provincial Government had arranged a two-day
workshop focused on re-invigorating the traditional
leadership system in the region because they were
alarmed about a perceived decline in the moral and
social fabric of New Ireland society. They invited all
the New Ireland maimai from the Tigak-, Kara-, and
Nalik-speaking areas to attend and set forth their plan
to establish a Council of Chiefs. The Council of
Chiefs, they proposed, would administer kastom
through regional bodies divided according to linguis-
tic groups. The provincial government would offer
finances and resources to support them.
Senior men from the Nalik-speaking area were
quick to suggest that they hadmore kastom than other
maimais from northern New Ireland. They pointed to
the fact that they had already established their own
executive committee for the administration of kastom
together with various subcommittees to oversee edu-
cation, training, language, and land. They indicated
that they were resourceful—they were working on
ways to recover cultural knowledge through their
engagement with digital technologies. They claimed
that their activities were “modern” and that this was
characterized by the global movement toward endors-
ing digital technologies. Referring to digital technolo-
gies as a form of “divelomen,” the senior Naliks also
added that because these digital images would be “out
there,” the maimais needed finances and resources to
manage and safeguard the images with the purchase
of computers and phones.
The provincial government representatives were
supportive of the project—without offering any assured
financial assistance—stating how they understood the
benefits of utilizing digital technologies for community
development. They saw theMobile Museum project as a
tool to aid the maimais in their role in re-invigorating
kastom within the communities and to help strengthen
civil society by re-instilling traditional values in the
people, especially the younger generation.
The Tigak and Kara senior men replied that while
the Nalik proposal should be commended, their ka-
stom was different from that of the Nalik community
and so they should receive their own independent
financial support from the provincial government
separate from any payment to the Naliks.
Digital heritage was repeatedly referred to as a
form of development in many different contexts.
During the consultation workshops in 2012 to 2013,
the return of malangan carvings in the form of digital
objects was seen as restorative and as an outcome of
divelomen. For many Nalik people, they hoped the
return would help re-invigorate the traditional order
—which was perceived to be under threat—and
instill Naliks with a renewed moral personhood, with
due respect for kastom and for the land.
In regard to Sierra Leone, Paul Basu (2011) sees the
value of digital heritage in terms of its potential for
digital objects in a melanesian society
140
cultural remittance: dispersed digital objects accessible
outside Sierra Leone offer the possibility for cultural
development in Sierra Leone through the return of
cultural knowledge. In contrast, among the Naliks, it
is the use of digital technologies locally that offers the
possibility of creating a new sense of order and a
means to tap into gavman (government) and financial
resources. Indeed, even though the digital heritage
project had yet to be started, the claims of senior Nalik
men reveal how members of the community had
begun strategizing for the arrival of the images not
only to re-invigorate cultural practices but also to tap
into New Ireland Provincial Government funds
through their claim of possessing kastom. It also dem-
onstrates how new bureaucracies and regimes of gov-
ernance are established to manage images, much like
in the Solomon Islands where White (2013) describes
how, on Santa Isabel, the revival of cultural traditions
has been met with bureaucratization and has led to
traditional chiefs orchestrating connections to wider
spheres of state and governmentality.
Concluding Thoughts
This study of the Mobile Museum pilot project in the
Nalik community asserts the ongoing and performa-
tive dimension of ethnographic objects that become
operative far beyond the static edifices of museum
institutions in the West. It underlines the complex
ways in which digital images pose challenges to
understandings of the object world and the value sys-
tems in which these objects are placed. Among the
Nalik, to reiterate, it can be dangerous to come into
contact with malangan carvings. Therefore, access to
the image of the carving provides a safe way to return
knowledge of these materials; to possess the image is
to have the capability to re-create the object (even
though it is in a museum somewhere). In addition, to
possess knowledge of malangan images allows senior
men to fashion themselves as ancestral (kastom) and
thus tap into financial benefits handed out by govern-
ment bodies—in New Ireland at least. Reclaiming
digital images of one’s own carries the potential of
reproducing objects, thereby legitimizing one’s clan
history and land while at the same time operating
within the governmental sphere (as well as a tradi-
tional sphere).
If museums are going to provide access to ethno-
graphic objects in the form of digital images, then one
needs to understand how these images are politically
utilized and deployed. In this sense, what is interest-
ing in debates about ethnographic objects and digital
repatriation is that even though objects remain
behind lock and key in institutions, digital heritage
carries the potential to unmoor images from their
material forms and surroundings and thereby offer
novel forms of revitalization, reintegration, and pos-
session (Phillips 2013). This unmooring can see
images of objects re-articulated as inherently political
possessions, as the New Ireland example suggests, and
demonstrates how digital technologies are implicated
in social, political, and economic environments.5
Yet, perhaps in the wider schema of debates in
museums and heritage studies, this discussion raises
the vital question: “Do museums still need objects?”
Conn’s (2010) response is to call for an ideological
return to the status of the object inmuseums and a rec-
ognition of the object’s power in fostering civil society,
which echoes Bennett’s (1995) earlier work on exhibi-
tions as a form of cultural technology. However, as we
enter the second age of museums, characterized by col-
laboration, co-curation, and partnerships (Phillips
2005), Conn’s words remind us how museums still
cling to ideological notions of the object rooted in
terms of its originality and authenticity. Indeed, if
museums continue to hold on to ethnographic objects
in their collections, then perhaps an alternative per-
spective is to suggest that the second age of museums
will be defined as the era when ethnographic objects
take on a more performative dimension again, re-ani-
mated through their circulation as digital objects and
expressions, offering a more tangible and significant
presence in their virtual guise than those locked away
inmuseum storage all over the world.
Acknowledgments
My research was funded by the University of Queensland
Collaboration and Industry Engagement Fund. I would
like to thank Mike Rowlands and Johanna Zetterstrom-
Sharp for comments on earlier drafts of this article.
notes
1. New Ireland is the largest island of New Ireland Province. It
lies to the northeast of New Britain and the New Guinea
mainland and is located in the Bismarck Archipelago.
2. See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQ_gdA0dNcE,
accessed September 9, 2013.
digital objects in a melanesian society
141
3. Adam Kaminiel, interview, November 7, 2012.
4. There are over one hundred artifacts from New Ireland
Province in the Queensland Museum and over one hundred
in the University of Queensland Anthropology Museum.
These artifacts include a range of weaponry, baskets and
containers, body ornaments, and tools, in addition to ma-
langan carvings.
5. A comparative example that illustrates this point well is the
digital images of Evans-Pritchard’s collection from South
Sudan, which were digitized by the Pitt Rivers Museum’s
Southern Sudan project (http://southernsudan.prm.
ox.ac.uk, accessed September 9, 2013). The images
became engaged in Anyuak land claims and demonstra-
tions of Ethiopian human rights abuse during the 2003
insurgence into Gambella.
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