Going against the grain: questioning the role of archivists and librarians in the documentation and preservation of indigenous knowledge

Abstract

Recently, archivists and librarians have been advocating for and re-affirming their role in the documentation and preservation of indigenous knowledge (IK). Whilst literature on this position abounds, we argue in this article that archivists and librarians are running the risk of imposing themselves on a system that “naturally” preserves itself. In face of the challenges that these collecting professionals encounter in trying to document IK, coupled with the nature of IK itself, we argue that IK should be left to “preserve” itself as it has always done. We argue that IK is a complex subject matter that can be equated to an ecosystem and has natural means of preserving and multiplying itself.  We further argue that IK is naturally resilient to forces of extinction and efforts by librarians and archivists, which employ scientific methods of documentation and preservation, are actually detrimental to IK. Although such efforts may appear to be the talk of the day, they are actually incompatible with IK and archivists and librarians may be wasting efforts by preserving something that otherwise “naturally” documents and preserves itself in a variety of means, including language, traditional ceremonies, books (novels) and other “natural” means.  We therefore conclude that IK is an ethnographical issue that should otherwise be left to take care of itself in local indigenous knowledge systems (IKS).