Based on the collection of nearly 500 films in the American Indian Film Gallery housed at the University of Arizona, this project tribesources mid-20th century educational and sponsored films about Native peoples of the U.S. Southwest and Southern California by recording Native narrations and contextual information for film content from the Native communities they represent. The films contain valuable historical visual imagery, but the original narrations are often inaccurate and culturally uninformed. Tribesourcing places historical materials with the peoples they represent in order to tell the untold or suppressed story. As we have conceived it, tribesourcing is guided by the Protocols for Native American Archival Materials (2006).
Note: To date, many of Navajo/Diné community films have been narrated as well as two Apache/Inde films and an Akimel O'odham/Pima. We are currently searching for community managers and narrators for all other films. Narrators for films in the Tribesourcing Southwest Films project are vetted by the tribes themselves. If you are interested in narrating or being an administrator for your community, please email Jennifer Jenkins at jenkinsj@email.arizona.edu.
Tribesourcing Southwest Film is sponsored by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, with support from the University of Arizona and wisdom from our tribal partners.
