Ethnographic materials consist of written field notes, journals, correspondence, still photos, audio and visual recordings, that were generated during the long-term field research of an anthropologist. By extension, journals, autobiographical accounts, and audio-visual materials generated by a scientist while conducting expeditions or fieldwork have ethnographic quality because they recorded live observation of an event as it happened. Would ethnographic materials about mountain communities – in the forms of text, audio, and visual – be qualified as information worth being assembled and integrated as one, or more, components or layers of long-term comprehensive multi-scientific data and information? What are the possible uses of such qualitative information for understanding the key interactions and feedback mechanisms of socio-ecological dynamics and policy formulation? What are the pitfalls?

Before CARE principles for Indigenous data governance (Collective Benefit, Authority to Control, Responsibility, and Ethics) were adopted, ethnographic materials have always belonged to their author. Can they be collected and made accessible, and how? The talk raises more questions than it answers. The purpose is to gauge the interest of the mountain research community in acknowledging, appreciating, and potentially making use of, with the assistance of innovative technologies and sound ethics, a wealth of qualitative information about the mountain and its people embedded in ethnographic materials that have been generated over the past century and will continue to be generated in decades to come.