Subject or object? Shaping and reshaping the intersections between aboriginal and non-aboriginal records

This paper considers the shaping and reshaping of, and intersections between, aboriginal and non-aboriginal communication, information, and documentation processes in British Columbia, from the mid 1800s to the 21st century. It suggests that when two cultures come into contact with each other, the relationship between them is inevitably transformed, along with each culture's traditional methods of communication, information management, and memory making. While it is often assumed that one technology might dominate the other, more often the different technologies and methods blend together to create a new hybrid approach, a cross-cultural integration, though the less powerful culture often does most of the accommodating. By considering the relationship between aboriginal people and European settlers in British Columbia, on the west coast of Canada, particularly over the ownership of and rights to land, this paper suggests that the two societies have intertwined their communities, their cultures, and their documentary systems to the point that today neither society exists in isolation. Each culture is inextricably linked with the other, a fact that calls into question the idea that aboriginal oral traditions are "pure" or separate from non-aboriginal methods of documentation, as well as the notion that written forms of record keeping about aboriginal-non-aboriginal relationships are not influenced by oral evidence from aboriginal sources.