Designing to Support Remote Working Relationships with Indigenous Communities

Mat Bettinson, Steven Bird

Abstract: Linguistic research with speakers of Aboriginal languages usually takes place though face-to-face interaction. The success of these interactions depends on relationships between scholars and Aboriginal people, relationships which are built up over an extended period. During the COVID-19 pandemic, researchers have often been prevented from travelling to remote Aboriginal communities, making it difficult to sustain these relationships and continue the collaboration. We describe an appliance design for supporting consultations between outside scholars and remote community members. Requests are framed as personal invitations via a asynchronous video messaging and delivered to the remote participant via “Lingobox”, a portable appliance akin to a multimedia answering machine. The device is being used with speakers of the Kunwinjku language in an extremely remote region of northern Australia.