About
Whale Chat was developed by Majel Peters as part of the Fall 23 Digital History course taught by Dr. Anne Valk at the CUNY Graduate Center. It was developed to investigate and document the intermingling of academic and cultural history and memory practices and convenes several points in time as a way of maintaining, building and activating the vibrancy of the historical knowledge. While answering the archivist Michelle Caswell’s call to “activate the archive,” by providing access to an obscure archival item that offers insight on the continuous expressions of Wampanoag agency and activism, the project also functions as part of my personal and continuous practice of immersion in the constant flow of my ancestral inheritance.
An excerpt of the conversation between Ramona Peters and Dr. Jason Mancini, at the heart of the project. The original recording was made on August 17, 2013 at the Mashpee Indian Tribal Museum. Peters and Mancini were collaborating on the gathering of exhibit materials for whaling exhibits they were independantly developing. The recording offers a richly informative and entertaining demonstration of the method by which our histories inherently exist on multiple planes. In traditionally academic settings, we are often pinned down to linear progression—the building up of narrative as points plotted on timelines and assessed for meaning. Peters’ and Mancini’s conversation demonstrates how our shared knowledge and experience of it permeates time and place—it exists all at once. As we listen, they weave together own associations across all points in time inspired by the other’s knowledge. The leap backward and forward in time and from place to place to create complex patterns of interconnectivity. They pose questions that ask us to consider the vast and intricate connections Indigenous whalers have made across space: bringing both afar and back home new ideas and technologies; and time: memory of the presence and actions living on the histories and traditions of the lands they visited. The underpinning of each story, is the water. The oceans and seas acting as conduits for not just transportation of physical bodies but ideas, inspiration, and hope.
Whale Chat's layers of activated shared knowledge include:
18-19th centuries events referenced in the recording
Knowledge of Peters and Mancini activated at the time of the recording
Majel’s associations while listening to the recording; with a focus on Wampanoag 19th century activism.
process, tools & resources
Otter.ai
The original recording was run through Otter.ai to obtain a transcript, which was then manually cleaned for accuracy and clarity.
Family and Tribal Archives
Using the transcript, family & tribal archives were cross-referenced for visual materials to be included
GarageBand
Sound clips that help demonstrate the perspectives of the speakers and the tenor of their conversation were selected and edited for inclusion using GarageBand. No additional sound mixing or adjustments were made to the original recording.
Special Acknowledgement to Ramona Peters for lending items from her personal archive, and to David Weeden for obtaining items from the Mashpee Tribal archives.