Selena Ortega-Chiolero
This session invites dialogue on developing a Tribal community digital archive that restores balance between community-held knowledge and externally housed materials. Focusing on the Ahtna community’s efforts to reunite intangible cultural heritage—such as recordings, stories, and historical documentation—participants will examine approaches to digital repatriation that honor Indigenous protocols, values, and sovereignty. Discussion will center on how community-sourced materials and repatriated content can be integrated to create digital spaces that are living, relational, and grounded in Indigenous knowledge systems. Using Ugheldze Hwle Cilaes (Sharing and Caring), CVTC’s online digital database that reunites the Tribe’s Permanent Collections and Archives with cultural expressions that are currently housed in external repositories, attendees will be able to visualize how community-driven data governance can help to preserve and perpetuate cultural heritage. The session will also explore the complexities of engaging with non-Native repositories that currently hold culturally significant materials, considering pathways for equitable collaboration, enhanced access, and co-stewardship. Through collective reflection, attendees will consider how digital tools can support Indigenous-led governance, empower self-determination, and strengthen cultural continuity in the stewardship of heritage.