The Storyscape Project Ethnographic Audio/Video Recording (SPEAR)
Tribal Digital Village Project

For a year and a half, the Storyscape Project has been consulting with the Tribal Digital Village Project (TDV) of the Southern California Tribal Chairman's Association, a consortium of the 18 Indian tribes in San Diego County and the University of California at San Diego.

    We have been working on the TDV project by assisting tribal members in how to conduct ethnographic recordings of their culture and language bearers and to develop cultural programming associated with the recordings.

As part of our association with the TDV, in February 2003, the Storyscape Project conducted a three day ethnographic audio and video recording workshop at the San Pasqual Resource Center, San Pasqual Reservation, near Valley Center, Caifornia.

   


The Tribal Digital Village Project (TDV), with the help of a technology grant from the Hewlett-Packard Corporation, is working to create a system of communication and connectivity between the tribes and assist in cultural preservation, revitalization and programming.


The Storyscape Project has been consulting with the TDV on the purchase and use of audio and video recording equipment and on the construction of a sound and production studio for use by the consortium of tribes.

Our team, consisting of cultural consultants Melissa Nelson and Philip Klasky, sound producer and engineer Colin Farish (StillwaterSound) and filmmakers Jillann Spitzmiller and Hank Rogerson(Philomath Films), instructed over 40 participants from 18 tribes in the use of a range of audio and video equipment, considerations and techniques for ethnographic recording.

We trained participants on the development of work plans and clear guidelines for intellectual and cultural property rights that empower culture bearers to control their own contributions; ways to restore and archive original and legacy ethnographic materials; production and duplication; and fundraising. We explored issues such as linguistic and cultural colonialism and methods of overcoming the barriers to cultural preservation and revitalization.

The workshop was part of a series of trainings we provide for introductory, intermediate and advanced ethnographic recording for tribes, consortiums of tribes, museums, community centers, conferences, educational institutions and indigenous communities.

Ten Bird Singers from area tribes offered their gift of songs for the final recording session of our training, where participants used digital audio and video recorders to document the event.