This is a call for those who are passionate about the Pacific and information management to come together to build Network or community of practise seeking to protect support and vitalise Pacific data and Pacific knowledge for the well being and happiness of all of the people of the WansolMoana.
This is an exploratory session to brainstorm and discuss the strategic challenges for Pacific data and Pacific knowledge. We hope to form working groups who define their own thematic areas and scope; all with the goal of addressing stated Pacific island priorities and goals as identified through the region’s key policy documents listed below, and any gaps or as yet unaddressed areas of need.

The 2050 Strategy for the Blue Pacific Continent - https://forumsec.org/2050

Boe Declaration on Regional Security - https://forumsec.org/publications/boe-declaration-regional-security

17 Goals To Transform The Pacific - https://pacificdata.org/dashboard/17-goals-transform-pacific

Pacific Regional Culture Strategy 2022-2032 - https://www.spc.int/resource-centre/publications/pacific-regional-culture-strategy-2022-2032#:~:text=This%20strategy%20recognises%20the%20increasing%20role%20of%20culture,traditional%20knowledge%20in%20various%20development%20contexts.%20DOWNLOAD%20HERE

As information and storage technologies and methodologies continue to evolve and grow, it is imperative that archivists and archival organizations, especially those representing marginalized communities, engage with and inform the development of these digital systems. Based on their 3-year collaborative research project, Modeling Sustainable Futures: Exploring Decentralized Digital Storage for Community-Based Archives, Shift Collective will lead a discussion on ethically designing preservation technology to support technological needs and align with community values. Participants will have an opportunity to discuss how to identify harm reduction strategies and apply them to technical solutions to address systemic inequities and support the autonomous and accessible preservation of community histories through ethical collaborations between CBAs and larger cultural memory institutions. We’re particularly interested in discussing what we call Healthy Local Cultural Memory Ecosystems—collaborative networks of cultural memory organizations that share resources, labor, and responsibility to build sustainable, equitable, and community-rooted approaches to preserving and activating local history. The following critical questions will shape our discussion:

1) For community-based archives and organizations, how do we map the threats and opportunities of collaborating with larger institutions for digital storage?

2) What does a healthy cultural memory ecosystem look like (collaboration, shared resources, wealth of knowledge, etc) vs. an unhealthy one (competition, scarcity, gatekeeping, etc), and what historical systems have created them? How might we design them better?

3)How can digital preservation technologies be shaped by and for communities that have been historically marginalized? Should they be? What are examples of this working well within communities?

4) How can larger institutions like universities, libraries, and museums support community-based archives without perpetuating extractive practices? Are there successful examples? How can we scale them?

The discussion will be facilitated by the Community Engagement Strategist for Shift Collective’s Modeling Sustainable Futures project. She is an archivist, educator, and facilitator.