Making the right to know possible: Metadata for discovery and accessing records relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples

This presentation documents the early findings and methodological approach of the Making the Right to Know Possible project, which investigates how metadata practices can improve the discovery and access of archival records relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples. The project is a partnership between Macquarie University, Queensland State Archives (QSA), and Rainforest Aboriginal corporations, including Girringun and Mamu, and is grounded in ethics approval and Indigenous-led research protocols.The presentation situates archival access as a rights-based issue, foregrounding the Right to Know, the Right of Reply, and Indigenous Data Sovereignty as core principles guiding archival practice. It argues that many records relevant to Indigenous Country, community, and family exist within collecting institutions but remain effectively inaccessible due to non-Indigenous descriptive frameworks, inadequate metadata, and limited recognition of Indigenous ways of knowing and classifying information.Through a community-engaged methodology, the project brings together three intersecting domains: research, collecting institutions, and community. The presentation illustrates how Indigenous rights in archives can be operationalised through collaborative processes that respect cultural authority while enhancing institutional discovery systems. Examples of record types—such as maps, photographs, land tenure files, school and environmental records—demonstrate the breadth of material that may hold cultural significance when properly contextualised.A key contribution of the project is its focus on metadata enrichment and cultural tagging. Rather than removing records from archives, the project explores how Indigenous knowledge holders can add layered descriptions, cultural context, and access conditions that make records more findable and meaningful to communities. The Girringun case study timeline shows a long trajectory of community engagement with cultural mapping, databasing, and knowledge governance, culminating in structured collaboration with QSA to review records and metadata.The presentation also documents practical learnings from community workshops, archive visits, and reference group governance processes. These include the importance of trust-building, clear authority structures, and adequate resourcing to support sustained engagement. Overall, the work demonstrates that improving archival metadata is not a purely technical task, but a governance process that can support cultural continuity, self-determination, and more ethical relationships between Indigenous communities and collecting institutions.