Partant de l'idée que les cérémonies yolngu du nord-est de la Terre d'Arnhem (Australie) relèvent de négociations dynamiques entre des individus, des clans et des ancêtres, cet article examine comment une série d'échanges rituels furent articulés dans le cadre d'un festival culturel ouvert aux touristes. Je montre comment un projet de patrimonialisation numérique insul a un élan de créativité rituelle dans plusieurs localités de la région et aboutit à une véritable campagne de représentation de soi durant le Festival Garma, un vaste rassemblement qui réunit chaque année des participants venus du monde entier. À travers l'analyse des événements qui précédèrent la première participation du clan Gupapuyngu au festival, l'article propose un éclairage sur les processus politiques qui sous-tendent l'échange rituel contemporain en Terre d'Arnhem.
You know that little clip that we took over at Ramingining? It's been shown all around the world!" Frank Garawirritja, 2008 1 "Not one of the Chooky Dancers owns a computer. But their foot-shuffling, pelvis-thrusting moves have made them Internet stars. " Louise Schwartzkoff, Sydney Morning Herald, 2008 1The "little clip" that turned a group of young Aboriginal men from a remote community in Arnhem Land into the world known Chooky Dancers after becoming a YouTube hit is called "Zorba the Greek Yolngu style". It was performed, and filmed in September 2007 during a local festival organised in Ramingining, an Aboriginal township situated in the westernmost corner of the East Arnhem Shire, in Australia's Northern Territory. This remote community of 700 residents is part of a vast tropical region sometimes referred to by anthropologists as the "Yolngu bloc".
The title of this article was inspired by a filmed interview that I conducted with Joe Gumbula in France in July 2007 during one of his ARC-funded research trips in response to a sceptical European curator who wanted to know why the Yolŋu wanted to have their materials back. Was it because they had lost their culture? Drawing on Joe’s eloquent response, I outline his pioneering perspective on museum collaborations and the digital repatriation of knowledge. Rather than transfixing things on computers, repatriation processes should be seen as modern pathways that link Indigenous peoples to their past, as well as present and future visions, enabling renewed performances of culture. This article has been adapted from my closing plenary address in tribute to Joe Gumbula at the 2017 Information Technologies and Indigenous Communities Symposium in Melbourne.
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