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Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons™
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Articles 1 - 7 of 7
Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
“It Was As Much For Me As For Anybody Else”: The Creation Of Self-Validating Records, Michelle Caswell, Anna Robinson-Sweet
“It Was As Much For Me As For Anybody Else”: The Creation Of Self-Validating Records, Michelle Caswell, Anna Robinson-Sweet
Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies
How does it feel to create a record? What personal impact does it have to represent yourself in a record after being misrepresented in records created about you by someone else? Employing a participatory action research (PAR) research design alongside two community archives, this article answers these questions through empirical interview and focus group data collected from people who told and recorded their stories as part of participatory projects led by the Texas After Violence Project (TAVP) and the South Asian American Digital Archive (SAADA). Across interview and focus group data with storytellers from both SAADA and TAVP, many participants …
Documenting Doha: Community Archiving And Collective Memory In Qatar, Sumayya Ahmed
Documenting Doha: Community Archiving And Collective Memory In Qatar, Sumayya Ahmed
Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies
Heritage experts working in Qatar contend that international museum standards do not allow them to engage with local understandings of history and heritage, thereby acknowledging the disconnect between museums and Qatari collective memory. This article posits that due to the relative absence of relatable representations in international-facing museums, Qataris, building upon a local tradition of private folk museums, are collecting and sharing their heritage materials via social media in forms known in the field of archival studies as “community archiving.” In reviewing examples of Qatari online community archives, it notes correspondences to the characteristics of community archives that have been …
Book Review: Urgent Archives, Terry Baxter
Book Review: Urgent Archives, Terry Baxter
Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies
In Urgent Archives, Michele Caswell provides a tough love blueprint that allows archivists, in whatever place they are situated, to take individual and collective liberatory action by extricating archival theory and practice from the constraints of the oppressive systems in which it is rooted and for which it has been a tool. While Urgent Archives is aimed at liberatory memory work in community archives settings it also has a lot to say to archivists in other, often institutional settings. Caswell lays out three legs of liberatory memory work -- temporal, affective, and material. She then proceeds to outline the …
Review Of Communities, Archives And New Collaborative Practices (2020), Jennifer Coggins
Review Of Communities, Archives And New Collaborative Practices (2020), Jennifer Coggins
Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies
This collection of varied case studies demonstrates the value and possibilities of participatory documentation initiatives, framing them in the context of the turn towards archives as collaborative spaces and the opportunities presented by the internet. Readers will find the volume useful as a source of creative models for community memory projects, but less so for addressing the challenges of long-term preservation and access in community archives. Overall, it is a valuable resource for those taking on community and participatory archives efforts.
Review Of Mary Kandiuk, Editor. Archives And Special Collections As Sites Of Contestation. Sacramento, Ca: Library Juice Press, 2020., Jennifer Gotwals
Review Of Mary Kandiuk, Editor. Archives And Special Collections As Sites Of Contestation. Sacramento, Ca: Library Juice Press, 2020., Jennifer Gotwals
Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies
Archives and Special Collections as Sites of Contestation, an edited volume collecting 17 essays from practitioners across the United States and Canada, contains chapters critically evaluating how Special Collections approach instruction, digital projects, cataloging, knowledge production, and ethics.
Summoning The Ghosts: Records As Agents In Community Archives, Jessica Tai, Jimmy Zavala, Joyce Gabiola, Gracen Brilmyer, Michelle Caswell
Summoning The Ghosts: Records As Agents In Community Archives, Jessica Tai, Jimmy Zavala, Joyce Gabiola, Gracen Brilmyer, Michelle Caswell
Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies
Although records have traditionally been defined by their physical form, our research reveals that records documenting marginalized communities disrupt these limiting definitions by surfacing the ways that community members conceive of the agency of records. Based on focus groups we conducted with fifty-four community members at five different Southern California–based community archives, this paper examines how community archives users conceive of records as agents, embodied with the voices of past lives, and capable of facilitating meaning for those who access, activate, and interpret them. In our findings, users of community archives not only surfaced the notion of records as dynamic, …
Review Of Participatory Heritage, Allyson E. Smally
Review Of Participatory Heritage, Allyson E. Smally
Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies
This review of Participatory Heritage, edited by Henriette Roued-Cunliffe and Andrea Copeland, focuses on the book's relevance to the archives field. It highlights some of the chapters that will be most relevant to archivists, provides overviews and highlights of each of the book's three sections, discusses some of the main themes that come up throughout the book, and mentions a few strengths and drawbacks to the book’s approach. It addresses some ways the book relates to important topics in the archives field today and what areas of the field it has particular relevance for. The review concludes that Participatory …