IASA-BAAC 2026 Conference

Name: Objects of Governance: Indigenous Community Archives, State Intervention, and the Struggle for Autonomy
Start: 2026-10-20T15:30:00+0300
End: 2026-10-20T16:30:00+0300

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Objects of Governance: Indigenous Community Archives, State Intervention, and the Struggle for Autonomy

Tuesday October 20, 2026 3:30pm - 4:30pm EEST

Statehood hall: Martynas Mažvydas National Library of Lithuania

Indigenous First Nation archives in remote Australian homeland communities can represent autonomy and renewal but also dependency and loss. The Australian federal government’s Emergency Response in 2007 intensified these tensions. Military intervention, together with the systematic defunding and restructuring of locally controlled organisations, challenged the information sovereignty underpinning the early development of Indigenous First Nation community archives. But the effects of this state-induced crisis on culturally significant audiovisual archives received little attention in either official evaluations, or archival scholarship. Drawing on critical archival studies and long-term fieldwork in Northern Territory communities, the paper contends that during a crisis, the true extent community archives govern their own historical records is revealed. If community archives become objects of governance rather than agents of their own documentary heritage, it reframes preservation projects as political technologies. For communities dedicated to autonomous archives, self-determination becomes a struggle against the competing archival logics.

Speakers

Robert Lazarus

Senior Lecturer, University of Melbourne

Dr Robert Lazarus is Senior Lecturer in the Robert Cripps Institute for Cultural Conservation at the University of Melbourne. His work focuses on the documentation and conservation of cultural heritage. Current research explores diverse archival practices in Australia, especially... Read More →

Tuesday October 20, 2026 3:30pm - 4:30pm EEST
Statehood hall: Martynas Mažvydas National Library of Lithuania

Long Presentation, In Person

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Zoom link https://us06web.zoom.us/j/86939636277
Zoom password 289030

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IASA-BAAC 2026 Conference

Robert Lazarus

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Robert Lazarus

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