The Rematriation Project

Digitizing the Caleb Pungowiyi Collection

Between June 1, 2022 and June 30, 2023, the team coordinated the digitization of the Caleb Pungowiyi collection. With the generous aid of the Virginia Tech Digitization Lab, the team digitized a wide range of physical materials, from photographs to personal journals. The digitization process of Caleb Pungowiyi’s materials resulted in about 200 hours of work, which included cataloging and digitizing the following materials:

• 554 slides
• 1,636 photos
• 94 journals and documents.

In total, the lab processed 2,284 items and produced 6,561 images. With the help of VT undergraduate research assistants, the handwritten resources were meticulously transcribed into digital format and enriched with metadata.

Overall, this digitization of the Pungowiyi collection providse the team a set of materials and actions to help develop their model of digital archiving, which communities throughout the NANA region can take up and apply in their own spaces.

Prototype Wikibase Archive of the Caleb Pungowiyi Collection

The team has created a prototype collection with a installation. This prototype provides us with a convenient initial data model for our work that can be scaled by Aqqaluk Trust and others to meet future and broader rematriation needs.

Check out the prototype!

Tracing Definitions of Rematriation

We have created a living document that traces existing definitions of Rematriation as a resource for us and others to use and share.

Learn more on the Tracing Rematriation page.