“Come Correct or Don’t Come at All:” Building More Equitable Relationships Between Archival Studies Scholars and Community Archives (original) (raw)
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American Archivist, 2022
Increasing interest in indigenization, decolonization, community archives, and the recent adoption of the Protocols for Native American Archival Materials (PNAAM) by the Society of American Archivists, offer opportunities for archivists to reflect on the application of "reciprocity" in archives. This article examines reciprocity as a concept in the archival field and shows how current reciprocal practices in archives with Native and Indigenous holdings can inform the wider field and its practice. The authors chart the emergence of reciprocity as an archival responsibility and to create fieldwide change through meaningful, community-based partnerships. They posit a continuum of institutional reciprocity, as well as how reciprocity might be seeded into the core functions of archives to bridge distances between communities and archival institutions. Inspired by recent scholarship in museum studies, the article concludes with a vision of "otherwising" to explore alternative possibilities that can be realized when we adopt reciprocity as an archival practice.
Community-Driven Archives: Conocimiento, Healing, and Justice
Journal of Critical Library and Information Studies, 2021
According to the Arizona Archives Matrix, the Latinx, Black, Asian and Pacific Islander, and Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) community currently make up over 42% of Arizona's population but are only represented in 0-2% of known archival collections. Arizona's archives are dominated by white narratives that promote white supremacy, settler colonialism, and dehumanizes Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) living on this land for centuries. This article will share parts of my autoethnography as a Queer Latinx and archivist who is addressing this inequity and erasure by establishing the Community-Driven Archives (CDA) Initiative at Arizona State University with the support of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Since the project's inception, I embraced a love ethic that uses Gloria Anzaldúa's path to conocimiento as an epistemological framework for our CDA work. In their book This Bridge We Call Home: Radical Visions for Transformation, Anzaldúa and AnaLouise Keating reflect on how conocimiento, a Spanish word for consciousness and knowledge, can be used to decolonize the mind, body, and soul of marginalized communities. I believe BIPOC and Queer community archivists experience the seven stages of conocimiento as they learn how to preserve their archives, reclaim their narratives, and build a collective memory that heals historical trauma. The undeniable truth is that decolonizing is an act of deep transformative love, courage, and reflection. A predominantly white profession will never decolonize archives because the foundation of most traditional repositories is rooted in white power and systemic racism. In order to truly liberate archives from oppressive theory and practice, there needs to be a redistribution of power and resources which grants marginalized people the authority to lead community-driven archives.
Archives and Manuscripts, 2017
Community archives have compelled shifts in dominant archival management practices to reflect community agency and values. To analyse these shifts, we ask: In what ways do community archives and their staff challenge traditional archival modes of practice? Do community archives work within or against dominant frameworks for institutional sustainability? Do community archives challenge or replicate dominant custody practices? Based on semi-structured interviews with 17 founders, staff and volunteers at 12 Southern California community archives, this research examines the diverse models of practice utilised by community archives practitioners that diverge from and challenge standard practices in the field. By addressing these questions, our research uncovers a variety of models of practice employed by communities in Southern California to autonomously create and sustain their archives.
Archival Science, 2011
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Archival Science, 2013
This article reports the first stage of a research collaboration that is elaborating the multiple relationships between archives and social justice. Specifically, it is developing narrative frameworks and diagrammatic representations to identify, understand, illustrate, and deploy the actual and potential social justice impact of archives, archivists, and archival repositories. A discussion of the broader and historical social justice landscape culminates with a working conceptualizationframework of social justice followed by an examination of the many methods and modes by which social justice can be an object of research. This is followed by an examination of the rising presence of social justice as an explicit and accelerating concern in four key English language archival journals before offering a working articulation and approach to an archival -social justice framework. A discussion of understanding and measuring impact, with specific reference to the framework of impact that we have chosen to deploy, culminates with an analysis of the social justice impact of archives as evidenced through two exemplary case studies. This is followed by a summation of key findings and a discussion of future plans to expand this research. The overall objective of these efforts is targeted towards elucidating how archives can be cast as having both positive and negative social justice consequences and demonstrating how archival work can serve social justice goals.
Speaking of Africatown: A Case Study in Community-University Partnership in Archiving
2019
What practices of community-based archives can be adopted or adapted by institutional archives and what are the considerations in doing so? There is a growing body of archival research suggesting that community-based archives are ideally situated to assist marginalized groups in identity formation, community solidarity, empowerment, and a host of affective benefits that flow from ownership of a group’s archival record and resulting validation of a group’s lived experiences. What role can institutional archives take in facilitating community-based collecting and can the same affective benefits arise through partnership or collaboration
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The Serials Librarian, 2000
This workshop presented a brief history, current projects, and some future goals of the Center for Research Libraries, which is based in Chicago, Illinois. Participants were invited to share their ideas on the many aspects of consortia development via a questionnaire and discussion.