For Australian Museum information see below.
Why does our project define Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property (ICIP) differently to other organisations?
The concept of Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual property was developed a legal framework nearly thirty years ago by Dr Terri Janke (1998, xvii). In recent times it has risen to greater prominence in research settings. Our guiding plain-English definition of ICIP is from Janke’s 2025 account where she explains:
ICIP refers to the rights that Indigenous people have in relation to all aspects of their heritage, knowledge, and cultural expressions. It includes traditional knowledge related to science, agriculture, ecology, and rituals. It also includes traditional cultural expressions like stories, designs and symbols, literature and language, ceremonies, dance, and song. It additionally pertains to cultural objects such as arts, crafts, ceramics, jewellery, weapons, tools, visual arts, photographs, textiles, or contemporary art practices. Moreover, ICIP encompasses lesser-thought of aspects like ancestral remains, secret and sacred knowledge, and the documentation of Indigenous peoples’ heritage in all forms of media.
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ICIP encompasses both the tangible (sites, objects) and intangible (knowledge, oral stories, performances). ICIP is linked to people, land, and identity, and is communally owned by the group it belongs to.
But as ICIP has become more prominent in the public mind it also attracted popular misunderstandings and distortions. Often ICIP is used as shorthand for ‘copyright’ or even for ‘suppressed’. Eg, you might hear people saying “That’s under ICIP so it can’t be released”. In a similar spirit, curators or archivists sometimes invoke ICIP in order to assert exclusive authority over the materials and knowledge in their care, and claim de facto rights of interpretation, analysis and provenance-attribution. This is generally applied in good faith as a strategy of risk-mitigation but at the same time it can also generate new risks, including the undermining of ICIP itself.
Institutions can never ‘own’ ICIP, and in fact ICIP rights can come into conflict with institutional assumptions around administrative confidentiality and control, as well as public expectations of disclosure. One potential consequence of the administrative interpretation of ICIP is that it can generate hurdles for communities who may be asked to demonstrate their ownership first while being denied access to critical sources that could help them demonstrate such ownership and activate their rights. An important aspect of Janke’s definition is that institutions are not mentioned at all and thus a priori rights of data governance cannot be assumed by the organisation that holds the materials.
Partly in response to this dilemma, the Indigenous Archives Collective has positioned cultural knowledge rights as a continuum such that certain rights are temporarily given precedence in order that dependent rights can be accessed. In this view, the right of a community to know what institutions hold (the Right to Know) is recognised as a prerequisite for the activation of other downstream rights including the right to interpret and represent that material (the Right of Reply). It is the Right to Know that is most likely to come into conflict with a collecting institution’s interest in suppressing access and defending legacy provenance attributions. This points to another sensitivity embedded in the ‘Right to Know’: the damaging assumption that ‘true’ community leaders must already have perfect knowledge about their own culture. While this is respectful of Elder status it can inadvertently downplay the distress that individuals experience when coming to terms with knowledge dispossession, making it harder for processes of knowledge restitution to be enacted.
The Australian Message Stick Project adheres to the Indigenous Archives Collective’s position on activating ICIP. This is explained in more procedural terms in our Statement for Collecting Institutions, Statement for First Nations Communities, and Repatriation Policy Note that the information about the specific ICIP embedded in entries in the Australian Message Stick Database, as opposed to the project more broadly, can be found on its front page.
Are there any kinds of information relating to Indigenous knowledge and material culture, that are not covered by ICIP?
ICIP applies to all varieties of knowledge that are transmitted within communities and which might be appropriated for gain by an individual or organisation. But information about the existence of an object, practice, individual or historical event is not a form of ICIP, nor can an ICIP policy seek to regulate how that existence is acknowledged, represented or discussed within communities or in the public sphere. See also Indigenous Archives Collective’s explanation of the Right to Know.
How does ICIP apply to unprovenanced or ambiguously provenanced objects and knowledge?
ICIP creates a dilemma for unprovenanced or poorly provenanced materials. Following discussions with Terri Janke in 2021, the Australian Message Stick Project holds that ICIP is retained in a promissory sense for such materials but that institutions who have not completed exhaustive provenance research for the items in question must make reasonable allowances for outside researchers to commit to this work on their behalf. In these instances, Indigenous Knowledge Holders cannot be accurately identified, and thus consulted, until the research is completed. This does not amount to ‘lifting ICIP’ since ICIP is inalienable. It does however, require institutions to use cautious judgment and discretion in their collaborations with researchers and create opportunities for possible reconnections to occur.
Why are certain message sticks not included in the Australian Message Stick Database?
The AMSD aims to be a permanent comprehensive record of message sticks that survive in domestic, international and private collections or whose prior existence is demonstrated through documents, sketches or photographs. In a small number of cases, message stick accessories are also included, eg, message stick carrying devices like paperbark wallets or headbands. Each entry is treated as a multiply sourced ‘biography’ of the object meaning that it is not a direct representation of a single source (such as a museum register) but a composite of many sources supporting the history of the same object.
In a few scenarios the project may choose not to include a message stick in the database:
- if the object is regarded by its traditional owners as sacred (in which case it is not a message stick).
- if the object is likely to have no significance to any community (eg, it might have been generated as generic type for a souvenir market)
- if there is no reasonable prospect of ever discovering the context of creation or provenance
This last criteria is especially relevant when it comes to private collections, auction items, or objects donated to a collecting institution without supporting documentation. Message sticks that entered a collection prior to the 1940s have a greater chance of being reconnected to documentation, including sketches and photographs, so they are more likely to be included in the database.
Note that a number of message sticks included in the early years of the project are now being digitally ‘deaccessioned’ from the database since they do not meet the current criteria.
What should I do if I find an error in the Australian Message Stick Database?
The AMSD is and will always be a work in progress and not a final authority. Errors are corrected on a regular basis, just as they are corrected in archives and museum catalogues. In other words, information in the database does not represent a ‘position’ on the object. If you see an issue, please click on the bell icon in the top right hand corner of each entry to give instant feedback. Wherever possible our team will address the issue on the spot. The project aims to maintain a record of changes as well as reasons for those changes in the ‘Notes’ field.
What should I do if I object to the inclusion of a specific entry, image or datapoint, in the Australian Message Stick Database?
In the first instance, follow the procedure for instant notification outlined above. In almost every instance the project can solve problems on the spot. Higher level decisions about data governance are managed by the Indigenous Data Network, a partner of the project. As such, more serious or complex objections can be addressed to Professor Marcia Langton, Chair of the Indigenous Data Network at the Melbourne School of Population and Global Health.
What legislation governs the regulation of data, materials and access for Australian collecting institutions?
ICIP is an idea that has been embedded in internal institutional policies, but is not itself enforceable in a court of law. The most significant Commonwealth legislation governing collecting institutions is the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act 1984. State legislation includes, for example, the National Parks and Wildlife Act 1974 for NSW, and the Australian Museum Trust Act 1975, specific to the Australian Museum regulates objects accessioned prior to 1969.
What are the special provisos for database entries informed by records at the Australian Museum in Sydney?
Each individual entry in the Australian Message Stick Database is created through a composite of sources from collecting institutions, archives and other public records. Records supplied by the Australian Museum between 2017 and 2018, have formed a substantial contribution to approximately 258 entries in the database. These contributing records include top-level EMu summaries, images of objects, and original register images. This information is specifically attributed in the entry.
In 2019, the museum revised its access protocols and some of these records may not have been released to the project under the new terms. An overview of these terms can be downloaded here. Furthermore, researcher Piers Kelly has entered into a contractual employment relationship with the museum until 30 June 2027 which restricts any use of museum records for purposes beyond the scope of the contract. As such, database entries informed by Australian Museum resources will not be updated beyond the very basic summaries listed in the ‘Description’ field, except where requested by communities. After 30 June 2027, basic errors will be corrected and certain entries may be expanded in consultation with communities. Prior to that time, all enquiries about entries for message sticks that are in the care of the Australian Museum should be directed to the museum itself and not to the Australian Message Stick Project.
Resources
Commonwealth of Australia. 2015. Australian best practice guide to collecting cultural material Canberra: Ministry for the Arts.
Janke, Terri. 1998. Our culture, our future: Report on Australian Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property rights. Canberra: AIATSIS.
Janke, Terri. 2018. First peoples: A roadmap for enhancing Indigenous engagement in museums and galleries. Canberrra: Australian Museums and Galleries Association.
Janke, Terri. 2018. First Peoples and Australian museums and galleries: A report on the engagement of Indigenous Australians in the museums and galleries sector, written for the Australian Museums and Galleries Association. Sydney: Terri Janke and Company.
Janke, Terri. 2025. “Protecting Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property in research collaboration.” In The Routledge handbook of human research ethics and integrity in Australia, edited by Bruce M Smyth, Michael A Martin and Mandy Downing, 111-125. London & New York: Routledge.