Trusting the copies? Historical photographs and native title claims

ABSTRACT

Cultural institutions have long employed a range of copying technologies to safeguard and improve access to archival materials. This paper moves discussion beyond debates about institutional copying focused on a specific technology and raises questions about the trustworthiness of copies of archival photographs. This study uses differences between a source photograph and four copies to show that copying practices shape how copies of archival photographs can be used. It is situated within the Australian legal context of native title to sharpen the interrogation of the trustworthiness of copies; and, to demonstrate one implication of how copying shapes the evidential value of photographs. It considers how a witness may respond if asked to testify that one or all of these copies are trustworthy or to outline their shortcomings as evidence. It explains that while standards for microfilm copying documents valued creating trustworthy copies, the transition to digital copying was a missed opportunity to re-establish those standards for creating digital surrogates of photographs. While questions raised have yet to be tested in legal native title procedures, this paper argues that the promise of photographs for native title outcomes will come to rest with the trustworthiness of institutionally created copies.

KEYWORDS:

• Copying archival photographs
• digitization
• Indigenous Australians
• native title
• trustworthiness

Acknowledgments

An earlier version of this paper was presented as part of a panel session “From illustration to evidence. Photographs in native title” with Michael Aird, Joanna Sassoon and David Trigger, Australian Society of Archivists, Brisbane, Australia [virtual conference] September 2021. A number of people have assisted with or discussed ideas in this paper including Karen Anderson, Gavan Bannerman, The Bancroft family, Heather Brown, Chris Hurley, Michael Piggott, Michael Quinnell, Barbara Reed, Catherine Robinson and Joan Schwartz.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Schwartz, “Working Objects,” 517.

2. Powell, “Origins of the Australian Joint Copying Project;” Simon, “1956–2006: Fifty Years;” Boylan, “The Cooperative Africana Microform Project;” and Cunningham and Maidment, “The Pacific Manuscripts Bureau.”

3. Sassoon, “Photographic Meaning;” Sandweiss, “Image and Artifact;” and Conway, “Digital Transformations.”

4. Payne, “Culture, Memory and Community;” Odumosu, “The Crying Child;” and Pasternak, “Photographic Digital Heritage in Cultural Conflicts.”

5. Christen, “Opening Archives: Respectful Repatriation;” Thorner and Dallwitz, “Storytelling Photographs, Animating Anangu;” and Pasternak, “Photographic Digital Heritage in Cultural Conflicts.”

6. Caswell and Cifor, “From Human Rights;” Cook and Schwartz, “Archives, Records, and Power;” Dalgleish, “The Thorniest Area;” Odumosu, “The Crying Child;” Punzalan and Caswell, “Critical Directions;” and Schwartz and Cook, “Archives, Records, and Power.”

7. Manžuch, “Ethical Issues;” and Conway, “Preservation in the Age of Google.”

8. Agostinho, “Archival Encounters.”

9. Duff, “Harnessing the Power of Warrant;” Brothman, “Afterglow;” and Cox and Duff, “Warrant and the Definitions of Electronic Records.”

10. Meehan, “Towards an Archival Concept of Evidence,” 133.

11. Barbara Reed, Recordkeeping consultant, pers. comm. to authors 22 October 2021.

12. Carter, “Ocular Proof.”

13. Aird et al., “From Illustration to Evidence,” 3.

14. Australia New Zealand Policing Advisory Agency (2013) Australia and New Zealand Guidelines.

15. Federal Court judgments relating to native title that mention photographs, albeit briefly, include Risk v Northern Territory of Australia 2006 FCA 404 [37, 590, 774]; Harrington-Smith on behalf of the Wongatha people (no. 9) v State of Western Australia 2007 FCA 31 [1822, 1825, 1833]; De Rose v State of South Australia 2002 FCA 1342 [370]; Sandy on behalf of the Yugara People v State of Queensland (No 2) 2015 FCA 15 [272, 274]).

16. Aird et al., “From Illustration to Evidence,” 19.

17. International Organization for Standardization, 15489–1: S5.2.2.

18. Ibid., S5.2.2.

19. Ibid., S5.2.3; S5.2.2.2; S5.2.2.4.

20. Ibid., S5.2.2.1.

21. Ibid., S5.2.2.3; and MacNeil, “Picking Our Text.”

22. State Records New South Wales, Legal Admissibility of Digital Records.

23. For overviews of debates around representation and truth value from different disciplinary perspectives see for example Ray, “Social Theory, Photography;” Schwartz, “Working Objects;” and Edwards, Anthropology and Photography.

24. This photograph is in the public domain. Michael Aird, an author of this article, has family connections to one of the men in the photograph, and has spent over 35 years researching historical photographs that survive in cultural institutions and within Indigenous families. Aird’s research is widely known and valued across Indigenous communities of southeast Queensland.

25. Bancroft, “Note on Bungwall (Blechnum serrulatum, Rich).”

26. See for example Donaldson and Donaldson, eds., Seeing the First Australians.

27. Aird et al, “From Illustration to Evidence,” 19.

28. Marks, “Bancroft, Thomas Lane.”

29. For example Photographs of Billy Keogh. Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford 1998.270.6.1; 1998.270.6.2; and Nicholls collection (c.1860–1979). Bristol Archives British Empire and Commonwealth collection. 2002/169.

30. Schwartz, “Photography, Travel, Archives,” 963.

31. Edwards and Hart, eds., Photographs, Objects, Histories.; Driver, “Material Memories of Travel;” and Schwartz, “Photography, Travel, Archives.”

32. Bann, ed., Art and the Early Photograph Album; and Edwards and Hart, eds., Photographs, Objects, Histories.

33. Donna Millar, DAMS Administrator QM Network, pers. comm. to the authors 16 and 18 August, 2021.

34. Harrison,“Colliver, Frederick Stanley (Stan).”

35. Tutt, From Spear & Musket, 26.

36. Julia Waters, Records Manager QM, conversation with the authors 16 June 2021.

37. Geraldine Mate, Principal Curator Cultures and History Programme, QM, pers. comm. to the authors 20 April, 2021; and Karen Kindt, Collection Manager Anthropology, QM, pers. comm. to the authors 9 May, 2019.

38. ”Bancroft Family Copy Prints 1894–1933,” State Library of Queensland 6097; and “Bancroft Photograph Albums 1908–1932,” State Library of Queensland 7703.

39. QIMR Berghofer, A Celebration of Art and Science.

40. ”Aboriginal People of Moreton Bay,” Moreton Bay Local History Collection. MBLHC CLPC-P1614.

41. ”Aboriginal People of the Moreton Bay District,” Moreton Bay Local History Collection. MBLHC MBPS-0006-229; and Kelly Ashford, MBLHC pers. comm. to authors 11 January 2022.

42. Blake and Osborne, Deception Bay.

43. Kelly Ashford, MBLHC pers. comm. to authors 5 March 2020.

44. Schwartz, ‘’We Make Our Tools,” 46.

45. Millar, A Matter of Facts, 29.

46. International Organization for Standardization, 15489–1: S5.2.2.1.

47. Ibid., S5.2.2.2.

48. Ibid., S5.2.2.3.

49. Ibid., S5.2.2.4.

50. Bearman, “Documenting Documentation;” Bearman, “Record-Keeping Systems;” and International Organization for Standardization, 15489–1: S5.2.3.

51. Association for Information and Image Management International, Standard Recommended Practice, 7; Fox ed., Preservation Microfilming; and National Library of Australia, Guidelines for Preservation Microfilming.

52. Association for Information and Image Management International, Standard Recommended Practice, 7.

53. International Organization for Standardization, Information and Documentation — Implementation Guidelines for Digitizing of Records; National Archives of Australia, Preservation Digitisation Standards; and National Library of Australia, Image Capture Standards.

54. Federal Agencies Digital Guidelines Initiative, Technical Guidelines for Digitizing Cultural Heritage Materials.

55. National Archives of Australia, Preservation Digitisation Standards.

56. See for example Australia New Zealand Policing Advisory Agency (2013) Australia and New Zealand Guidelines for Digital Imaging Processes.

Additional information

Funding

The research for this paper has been funded by the Australian Research Council Indigenous Discovery Fellowship Scheme, “From Illustration to Evidence in Native Title: The Potential of Photographs,” led by Michael Aird, University of Queensland. ARC project number IN17010009. This project is conducted with ethics permission. HREC Reference number: #2017000273.

Notes on contributors

Joanna Sassoon

Joanna Sassoon is an historian and archivist. She has published widely across photographic, environmental, Indigenous and oral history. Her current research interests bring together archival theory, Australian photography and cultural institutional practice. Her first and award-winning book is Agents of Empire: How E.L. Mitchell’s Photographs Shaped Australia (2017). Her work includes teaching and research roles at Curtin University and the University of Queensland.

Michael Aird

Michael Aird is the Director, Anthropology Museum, School of Social Science, University of Queensland and ARC Research Fellow. He has worked in the area of Aboriginal arts and cultural heritage since 1985, maintaining an interest in documenting aspects of urban Aboriginal history and culture. He has curated over 30 exhibitions and has been involved in numerous projects in areas relating to historical photographs and representations of Aboriginal people. In 1996 he established Keeaira Press, an independent publishing house, producing over 35 books.

David Trigger

David Trigger is Emeritus Professor of Anthropology at the University of Queensland and Adjunct Professor at the University of Western Australia. He is the principal partner in David S Trigger & Associates consulting anthropologists. His research interests encompass the different meanings attributed to land and nature across diverse sectors of society. In Australian Aboriginal studies, Professor Trigger has carried out more than 35 years of anthropological study on Indigenous systems of land tenure, including applied research on resource development negotiations and native title. Professor Trigger is the author of Whitefella Comin’: Aboriginal Responses to Colonialism in Northern Australia (1992) and a wide range of scholarly articles.