Paper short abstract

Is it possible to 'repatriate' anthropological research? This paper looks at the practical, theoretical and cultural implications of returning a lifetime of photographs and films to a specific community.

Paper long abstract

This paper looks at the practical, theoretical and cultural implications of returning a lifetime of photographs and films to a specific community. It traces the origins and ongoing development of a project developed at the Australian National University, Canberra, with the Buku-Larrnggay Mulka Centre in Yirkala, which is centred on the digital return of audio-visual archives created by the anthropologist Howard Morphy over the past forty years.The wider project team have been working to devise a cross-culturally applicable database—using the OCCAMS platform—which can integrate multiple archive formats (text, photos, audio tapes and videos) to create a dialogic, culturally appropriate, database which is accessible for multiple users.