PSM Unpacked

“Archives hold connections & memory”: How ABC manages its Indigenous collections

16 September 2026

A recent PSM Unpacked event, hosted by PMA and led by the ABC’s Manager of Indigenous Collections and Community Access, explored how archives can be managed to move beyond preservation and become tools for cultural connection, accountability and community empowerment. 

The Public Media Alliance’s (PMA) last PSM Unpacked Roundtable in May explored Indigenous archiving practices and the role public service media can play in both safeguarding, and returning content to communities. Tasha James, who leads Indigenous collections work at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), hosted this session, attended by archivists from across PMA’s global network.

Drawing from experience, Tasha emphasised that archives are far more than just repositories of information. For many Indigenous Peoples, archival materials hold memories, relationships, language, stories and connections to ancestors. The discussion highlighted how archives can support cultural continuity and language revitalisation, helping communities reconnect with histories that may have been inaccessible for generations.  

“I realised archives do not hold information, they hold connections, memory, living connections to our family … at its core, Indigenous Archiving is about responsibility, respect and control.”  

Public Media Archives

The Indigenous Collection and Community Access team at ABC, established in 2021, was created to strengthen culturally informed archival practices. ABC holds recordings dating back over 90 years, including historically significant content documenting Indigenous communities, artists, languages and landmark social movements.  

Tasha described these collections as a unique public service responsibility, explaining that archives are not simply places where content is stored. Instead, they act as spaces of accountability and truth-telling, preserving voices, languages, songs and stories that may exist nowhere else. 

The relevant question then for public media, is what does culturally sensitive and responsive archive stewardship look like? And how does it inform the work of the ABC archive teams? 

Key takeaways from the session

Access: While making archival material available to communities is essential, participants heard that meaningful access must begin with relationships, consultation and trust-building rather than technology alone. Effort must be made to ensure such communities know that these archives exist in the first place. 

Communities often identify inaccuracies within archival records, such as incorrect names, descriptions or terminology. Addressing those issues requires active collaboration and recognition that communities themselves are the experts on their own histories and cultures.   

“The people who are in that collection need to be with you from concept. [They] need to be in a co-design model, helping and leading the way as decision makers.” 

Returning Archives to Communities:   One practical example shared was the ABC’s Kin-Nect programme, launched in 2023. The initiative provides digital returns of archival content directly to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities and individuals at no cost. Since its launch, hundreds of hours of content have been returned, helping communities reconnect with historical recordings and cultural heritage.  

The programme also incorporates a “right of reply” approach, enabling communities to provide additional context, correct inaccuracies, and contribute new information that can be embedded into archival records.  

AI and Archiving:  The role of artificial intelligence in archives generated a strong  discussion. While AI may offer benefits for language identification, transcription and discovery, Tasha cautioned that significant ethical challenges remain when working with culturally sensitive material.  While AI can help discover and manage Indigenous archives, it should never become the authority over Indigenous knowledge. Tasha notes that archival collections contain cultural knowledge, language, images, voices and stories that carry different levels of cultural authority and access, and that AI does not inherently understand those protocols. 

There are also risks around consent, Indigenous cultural intellectual property, Indigenous data sovereignty, cultural and gender restrictions, material following people who have passed away, and AI reproducing colonial bias or inaccurate metadata at scale. For Tasha, the central question is not simply whether AI can make collections more discoverable, but who decides what is discoverable, who has authority to describe it, who benefits, and who controls it. Indigenous community governance and self-determination, she argued, must sit at the centre of any use of AI in Indigenous archives. 

Conclusion  

The roundtable concluded with a discussion about collaboration between archive professionals and the value of learning from international experiences. Participants reflected on the shared challenges they have, from correcting metadata and improving discoverability, to supporting language preservation and community engagement.   

“Archives can hold pain, but they can also hold possibility.”   

The discussion highlighted how archives can be places not only of preservation, but of recovery, reconnection and renewal. For public service media organisations, often with histories of extracting material and content from communities with little to no regard for the values and belief systems of Indigenous Peoples, such archiving practices offer an opportunity to strengthen relationships with communities. It also means that cultural heritage remains accessible, respected and meaningful for future generations.