Tag: memory institutions

Archivists on the Issues: Sophisticated Bureaucracies, Archives, and Fictional Depictions

Archivists on the Issues is a forum for archivists to discuss the issues we are facing today. Today’s post comes from Burkely Hermann, Metadata Librarian for the National Security Archive and current I&A Blog Coordinator. There will be spoilers for each of the books, animated series, films, and other media he will be discussing.

Organizational chart of the National Archives
This organizational chart of the National Archives and Records Administration is an example of an archival bureaucracy

Large government, corporate, and private archives are bureaucratic. Even though the so-called Information Revolution threatened to upend existing practices within archival bureaucracies, and structures of these institutions, new records management strategies developed, in Europe and U.S., which are as hierarchical as previous methods. [1] Bureaucracy remains firmly entrenched, in language, practices, and strategies of collecting institutions, whether the National Archives or Library of Congress. In this post, I’ll discuss the role of bureaucracies in archival institutions and connect my findings to fictional depictions.

Recordkeeping often lends itself to bureaucracy, whether in non-profit organizations, corporations, or governments. Sometimes practices change and reinforce the bureaucracy of these institutions. This can include discouraging creation of “rich narrative reports”, while supporting archival classification and arrangement as an “infrastructural tool”. Furthermore, some bureaucracies are repressive, affecting restitution of captured wartime records. [2]

Unsurprisingly, culture of documentation has changed from being transactional to bureaucratic as organizationally sophisticated bureaucracies first developed in the 19th century. Scholar Francis Blouin called for new principles about diplomatics, referring to study of form, creation, and transmission of records, and their relation to facts within them, and their creators, to order to “identify, evaluate, and communicate their nature and authenticity.” [3] Blouin argued that bureaucratic culture produces transactional and literary records, systematic recordkeeping, analytic records, and records created in respect to “sovereignty of people in democratic societies”. In Blouin’s view, in such societies, public accountability necessitates “particular forms and genres of recordkeeping.” [4]

Other scholars have noted growing complexity, changing nature, and interrelatedness of government bureaucracies. Recently there has been a tendency to “free up” bureaucracy while encouraging entrepreneurship and risk-taking. The latter undermines archival missions. [5] Modern bureaucracies have defined existing file systems, even as archivists and historians are presented with many challenges. This includes influence on archival theory, especially by Weberian bureaucratic thinking, and controlling access to records. This was even the case in Eastern Europe, with political shifts in latter years of the Cold War caused archival access procedures to change. [6]

Modern bureaucracies have produced a “sheer mass of records”. In the past, this caused archivists to use sampling in order to determine “research potential” of records and appraise them. Even so, archivists continued to experience frustrations when “dealing with” bureaucracy, while being a part of complex bureaucratic structures, which can include competing groups. [7] More recently, there has been discussion of how various technologies can change bureaucratic processes, including in the United Nations and Vatican. Other scholars have asked whether the role of archives in the life-cycle of government records is a way of “holding democratic governments accountable”. The latter is the case in Germany, which has a strict division between records management and archival functions, with records remaining in custody of government bureaucracies. [8]

Fictional depictions of bureaucracies reflect some of these realities. One of the best known examples are the Vogans in Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, who destroy Earth because the planet is in the way of a hyperspace freeway. They are the embodiment of bureaucrats. The Vogans are inefficient, with absurdly lengthy official processes, and their continued efforts to thwart “any real progress in the galaxy.” Adams’ makes clear a metaphor: the house of protagonist Arthur Dent will be destroyed by an uncaring (and extremist) bureaucracy, just as the Vogans are doing to the planet. [9] Archives are not directly shown, but characters in the 2005 film view a restricted archival record from the Magrathean Public Archive. The record cuts off before revealing the name of a supercomputer, with a message stating that information has been deleted, as I noted in my post on the Issues & Advocacy blog back in December.

While bureaucracies are famously criticized in novels like Catch-22 and The Trial, they are a major part of other media, like the acclaimed animated series, Futurama. In the series, Hermes Conrad (voiced by Phil LaMarr), is a bureaucrat who works for the Central Bureaucracy, which manages legal, financial, and business matters in the city of New New York. In one episode, “Lethal Inspection”, a physical file archive is shown, with Hermes taking a folder out of a file cabinet. It is later revealed that he was the inspector who approved a defective robot named Bender (voiced by John DiMaggio), after be burns the file.

Brad Houston, a Document Services Manager for the city of Milwaukee, said the physical file archive is really a records center because it has semi-active records. He described how the Milwaukee records center works, noting the importance of filling out transfer forms correctly, pointing out that records are organized by box with specific assigned numbers, and importance of records management training. As another archivist put it, information and records management is as much about understanding bureaucratic processes and human behavior as it is about the records and information.

While there are many other examples of fictional bureaucracies, [10] one specifically comes to mind: the Elven bureauacracy in the children’s adventure and supernatural comedy-drama animated series, Hilda. An elf named Alfur (voiced by Rasmus Hardiker) is a series protagonist. Like the other elves in the series, they can only be seen if their tiny paperwork is signed and filled out. In the first episode, the protagonist, Hilda (voiced by Bella Ramsey), tries to come to peace with the elves, who see her as a menace because she stepped through their houses for years without realizing it. In the process, she goes through various Elven political officials who declare there is nothing that can be done and that the matter is out of their hands.

As the series continues, Alfur becomes a correspondent in the city of Trolberg, and files reports about his daily activities in the city, where Hilda is now living. Characters such as Frida (voiced by Ameerah Falzon-Ojo) and Deputy Gerda (voiced by Lucy Montgomery) are shown to care about the paperwork as much as him, as does the witchy librarian named Kaisa (voiced by Kaisa Hammarlund). In other episodes, Alfur proudly tells a legendary Elf story about a fight over a real estate contract, he meets a society which doesn’t use paperwork, and emphasizes the importance of reading the fine print. The series also features elf-mail, known as “email”, which is sent from the countryside into the city with various couriers, Alfur saying that elves pride themselves on the accuracy of historical records, and impressed by how Hilda is able to use loopholes. In the next to last episode of the show’s second season, Alfur is able to convince an elf sent as his replacement to write an eyewitness confirmation form, confirming that his reports from Trolberg, said to be “the most requested from the official archive”, are accurate and true.

Hilda, emphasizes importance of accountability within hierarchies more than fictional bureaucracies shown in The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy and Futurama. Alfur is graded on a performance management system and experiences some level of bureaucratic accountability. The latter is achieved, within institutions, through strategies, administrative rules, budget reviews, and performance management. It can also be accompanied by citizen accountability, which attempts to hold government administrators accountable through forums and laws, using communication technologies to directly access bureaucratic information, monitor government activities, and give feedback on delivery of public services. However, Futurama and Hilda make clear the value of records managers (and archivists) who have developed strategies and experience with relationship-building and negotiating bureaucratic politics.

Many archives, these days, are not “faceless” or “nameless” as those in fiction, nor do they encourage falsification of information to protect individuals. Instead, some likely came into existence during the Progressive Era to “lessen anxiety” about issues such as race. While some bureaucratic records, within archives, may be considered “cold”, there have been efforts to humanize the files, especially those about human atrocities. Even so, some archivists remain impatient with “inanities” of bureaucracies they are part of. [11]

Bureaucracy remains part and parcel of archives. There have been efforts, in recent years, to reduce bureaucracies said to be “overlapping” and related claims that government by bureaucracy is dead or no longer necessary. Despite this, committing information to paper, then managing, or shuffling, that paper within a bureaucracy remains a “source of an essential power.” After all, records have the power to legitimize bureaucracy, while promoting political hegemony and constructing social memory. In fact, in the 1985 film, Brazil, a controlling bureaucracy rules people’s lives and crushes spirits. [12] The film’s protagonist, Sam Lowry, has been described by some as an archivist who has “dreamlike moments” and sees himself as a winged superhero. He tries to tamper with data in order to save the woman he loves before his vision is shown to be an illusion.

While there won’t be any “bureaucratic cock-ups” or Vogan Constructor Fleets demolishing Earth to make way for a hyperspace expressway, [13] sophisticated and complex bureaucracy will remain an integral part of archives, whether we like it or not.

Notes

[1] Bearman, David. “Diplomatics, Weberian Bureaucracy, and the Management of Electronic Records in Europe and America.” The American Archivist 55, no. 1 (1992): 169–70, 173–76, 180.

[2] Wosh, Peter. “Bibles, Benevolence, and Bureaucracy: The Changing Nature of Nineteenth Century Religious Records.” The American Archivist 52, no. 2 (1989): 166-167, 169, 172, 175, 178; Montgomery, Bruce. “Saddam Hussein’s Records of Atrocity: Seizure, Removal, and Restitution.” The American Archivist, 75, no. 2 (2012): 326, 331, 333, 357.

[3] Blouin, Francis. “A Framework for a Consideration of Diplomatics in the Electronic Environment.” The American Archivist 59, no. 4 (1996): 466-467, 471, 477-478.

[4] Ibid, 476.

[5] Wilson, Ian. “Reflections On Archival Strategies.” The American Archivist 58, no. 4 (1995): 414, 416-417, 421, 423-424.

[6] Elliott, Clark. “Science at Harvard University, 1846–47: A Case Study of the Character and Functions of Written Documents.” The American Archivist 57, no. 3 (1994): 448-450, 460; Menne-Haritz. “Appraisal or Documentation: Can We Appraise Archives by Selecting Content?” The American Archivist 57, no. 3 (1994): 528, 532-533; Ress, Imre. “The Effects of Democratization on Archival Administration and Use in Eastern Middle Europe.” The American Archivist 55, no. 1 (1992): 86, 90-91.

[7] Kepley, David. “Sampling in Archives: A Review.” The American Archivist 47, no. 3 (1984): 237-238; Lutzker, Michael. “Max Weber and the Analysis of Modern Bureaucratic Organization: Notes Toward a Theory of Appraisal.” The American Archivist 45, no. 2 (1982): 120-122, 124, 126, 130.

[8]Taylor, Hugh. “‘My Very Act and Deed’: Some Reflections on the Role of Textual Records in the Conduct of Affairs.” The American Archivist 51, no. 4 (1988): 456, 459-460, 464, 466; Zandt, Lauren. “A Future in Ruins: UNESCO, World Heritage, and the Dream of Peace.” The American Archivist 84, no. 1 (2021): 214-217; Blouin, Jr., Frank. “A Case for Bridging the Gap: The Significance of the Vatican Archives Project for International Archival Information Exchange.” The American Archivist 55, no. 1 (1992): 184, 186-188; Hering, Katharina. “Zwölf Wege ins Archiv. Umrisse einer offenen und praktischen Archivwissenschaft.” The American Archivist 84, no. 1 (2021): 212-213.

[9] Fatima, Zahra. “Humor, Satire and Verbal Parody in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: A Relevance Theoretic Approach.” NUML Journal of Critical Inquiry 14, no. 11 (2016): 45, 51; Thompson, Thomas David. “The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy: A Metaphorical Look at Life, the Universe, and Everything.” Bachelors, California Polytechnic State University, 2015, see pages 15-16.

[10] The Wikipedia category “Bureaucracy in fiction” lists 50 entries, including Loki TV series, the anti-communist novel 1984, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and The Pale King.

[11] Yakel, Elizabeth. “Reviews.” The American Archivist 64, no. 2 (2001): 407-409; Pierce, Pamela. “Cruising the Library: Perversities in the Organization of Knowledge.” The American Archivist 81, no. 1 (2018): 262; Arroyo-Ramirez, Elvia. “Paper Cadavers: The Archives of Dictatorship in Guatemala.” The American Archivist 80, no. 1 (2017): 244-245; Jimerson, Randall C. “Archiving the Unspeakable: Silence, Memory, and the Photographic Record in Cambodia.” The American Archivist 78, no. 1 (2015): 265-266; Radoff, Morris. “Recent Deaths.” The American Archivist 42, no. 2 (1979): 264.

[12] Baker, Kathryn. “The Business of Government and the Future of Government Archives.” The American Archivist 60, no. 2 (1997): 237, 241, 252; Cline, Scott. “‘To the Limit of Our Integrity’: Reflections on Archival Being.” The American Archivist 72, no. 2 (2009): 331-333, 340. Cline also says that records can reinforce cultural mythology, and bolster democracy and democratic institutions.

[13] Adams, Douglas. “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.” In The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide, 16, 25-26. New York: Gramercy Books, 2005. Vogans are also described, on page 38, as “one of the most unpleasant races in the galaxy…[not] evil, but bad-tempered, bureaucratic, officious and callous”.

by Categories: Archivists on the IssuesTags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 5 Comments

The fate of history in the balance: The Seattle Federal Records Center still under threat

Archivists on the Issues is a forum for archivists to discuss the issues we are facing today. The following is from Burkely Hermann, recent graduate of the University of Maryland – College Park’s graduate program in Library and Information Science, with a concentration in Archives and Digital Curation.

On February 16, John C. Coughenour, a Reagan-appointee and Senior Judge of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, blocked the sale of the National Archives facility at Seattle, one of the Federal Records Centers (FRC) in the U.S. with a preliminary injunction. This ended the movement of records from the facility to FRCs in Missouri and California, many of which are “un-digitized records.” He called the situation a “public relations disaster” of the Public Buildings Reform Board (PBRB), the entity which proposed the sale, and said that the PBRB had “a stunning lack of appreciation of the issues” of indigenous people. While the attorney generals of Washington State and Oregon applauded the decision, as did indigenous people, genealogists, U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell, and others, the fight is not over. The Stranger said that history “requires defending in the present,” The Cut argued that the fate of the Seattle FRC “remains undecided,” and MyNorthwest noted there is “more potential trouble” in the future if noting about the facility changes going forward. On February 18, local Seattle leaders and the governor of Oregon both wrote President Biden, calling on him to stop the sale of the facility. Even with the injunction, it is short-lived, meaning that the facility remains under threat. As such, it is important to once again, as I noted in February and November of last year, to explain the negative impact the closure of this facility will have on those in the Pacific Northwest and in the U.S. as a whole.

Over the past year, there have been legal efforts to delay the closure. Kim Wyman, the Secretary of State of Washington State, began meeting with the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) and other stakeholders, in hopes of brokering a solution to keep the archival materials, which document “history across the Pacific Northwest” in the state of Washington. At the same time, Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson made filings in federal court, including the recent lawsuit which included almost 600 pages from indigenous peoples, individuals, and interested groups which attest to the value of the Seattle facility and materials which are held there. If the “nearly million” boxes of archival materials from the facility were moved to Missouri and California as planned, access to records about Asian American history would be made more difficult, as would records that relate to the “cultural preservation, history and treaty rights” of various indigenous nations in the Pacific Northwest. Moving the records to facilities in those states would make them less publicly accessible, destroying one of the “wellsprings” from which the “collective memory” of the region and nation is formed, as argued in the case in the amicus brief by the Korematsu Center. A recent successful lawsuit filed by Ferguson in early January, joined by 29 indigenous groups, and historic community and preservation groups, to stop the relocation and sale of the Seattle FRC, explains the problem succinctly:

“This action shows a callous disregard for the people who have the greatest interest in being able to access these profoundly important records…The facility contains the DNA of our region. It provides public access to permanent records created by Federal agencies and courts in Alaska, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington…the National Archives at Seattle is the only property among those the PBRB recommended for sale that has profound importance to the region in which it is situated and is regularly used by members of the public…These irreplaceable archives are primarily un-digitized and do not exist elsewhere.”

The closure of the facility would violate NARA’s own principles to preserve and provide access to U.S. records and document U.S. history, especially those documents essential to U.S. government actions, rights of U.S. citizens, and any other records which “provide information of value to citizens.” It also runs afoul of NARA’s commitment to drive “openness, cultivate public participation” and strengthen U.S. democracy through “public access to high-value government records.” That same commitment states that NARA will lead the “archival and information professions to ensure archives thrive in a digital world.” That seems unlikely since only about 1% of the NARA’s record holdings are digitized and even less than 1% of presidential library records have been put online.

Furthermore, moving the records from Seattle to the FRCs in California, whether in Riverside or in San Francisco, and St. Louis, Missouri, would disregard the core values of archivists outlined by the Society of American Archivists. These core values state that archivists have a duty to foster greater access and use to records, maintain records which allow “contemporary and future entities” to seek accountability, serve as responsible “stewards for primary sources,” and root their “ethics of care that prioritizes sustainable practices and policies” when it comes to archival duties. The “boxes of information” within the Seattle FRC, highlighted by one local Seattle reporter, Matthew Smith, would be made less accessible if the records were moved elsewhere in the country. If the Seattle FRC is closed, it will be a sad day for archives, records, and preservation of U.S., indigenous, and community history.

Although the closure of the Seattle FRC has been halted by Judge Coughenour, this is only a temporary measure. In the short-term, you could contact the management team of NARA, especially chief archivist David Ferriero (david.ferriero@nara.gov), deputy chief archivist Debra Steidel Wall (debra.wall@nara.gov), and Chief Operating Officer William J. Bosanko (william.bosanko@nara.gov), and the PBRB at fastainfo@pbrb.gov, to express your opposition to the closure, while calling on President Biden to follow the judge’s decision and keep the facility open. In the long term, NARA needs increased funding and you can use the information put together by the Archival Researchers Association to contact your members of Congress to push for legislation which would increase the agency’s budget.

by Categories: Archivists on the IssuesTags: , , , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

Archivists on the Issues: Archives and the Rural-Urban Divide

Archivists on the Issues is a forum for archivists to discuss the issues we are facing today. The following post is from Bradley J. Wiles, a PhD student in Information Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, School of Information Studies. 

In recent years, the fate of rural American communities has been prominently featured in national press coverage and soul-searching public discourse about the United States’ changing social, economic, and demographic realities. Rural communities, we have often heard, have failed to adapt to the new global economy and suffer from irreversible brain drain; they are close-minded, cultural wastelands characterized by aging populations and despair-induced morbidity; the biggest incentive they offer to would-be transplants is cheap property and good but under sourced school systems. Urban and suburban communities, by contrast, are growing steadily and have been for decades. They possess in abundance the desirable quality-of-life amenities and economic opportunities that rural communities lack, and examples abound of renewal and persistence in large cities previously written off by critics of contemporary urban policy. The biggest losers in this comprehensive demographic and economic reshuffling appear to be remote agricultural communities. Although this narrative is generally supported by the available evidence, the factors driving rural decline are complicated and often the narrative fails to capture this complexity.

So much of the recent decline narrative about rural America is related to demographic and economic trends extending from the Farm Crisis of the 1980s. Numerous writings have detailed the collusion between government, food conglomerates, and the financial sector to push maximum production and corporate models of efficiency throughout the entire American agricultural system. Unfortunately, these efforts brought about a perfect storm of conditions that resulted in massive bankruptcies and property foreclosures, rural suicide levels higher than in the Great Depression of the 1930s, and the decimation of the family farm system that had been a cornerstone of rural life for over a century. Although the rural-to-urban population shift was well underway by the 1980s, this trend accelerated in all subsequent economic downturns and became virtually irreversible in the wake of the Great Recession. Similarly, rural poverty has equaled or exceeded that of urban areas for decades, and the recovery from the Great Recession has mostly bypassed rural communities, especially those in remote and sparsely populated areas. Recent reference statistics from the United States Department of Agriculture on rural recovery show that the urban-rural poverty gap has widened since the end of the recession, with employment in rural areas still not up to pre-recession levels and overall income growing at a much slower rate than non-rural locations. Additionally, the majority of remote agricultural and micropolitan areas have lost significant population since 2010, a reality that is increasingly both the cause and result of widespread economic woes.

Some recent analyses suggest that the rural population decline is a relative measure that is more reflective of the changing designations of areas and communities from rural to suburban or urban. Indeed, in some areas with remarkable geographical features or that are accessible to urban amenities, rural areas have experienced a net population growth. However, remote rural areas have experienced a near fatal combination of declining in-migration, increasing out-migration, and lower natural replacement levels related to resident fertility and aging. Lower fertility rates and higher average ages exacerbate resource-depleted remote rural areas that already have trouble attracting adequate health care services, funding public works, and providing other basic needs for its residents. Because of larger economic trends that afford more opportunities in cities and suburbs, young people who grow up in rural communities are less likely to move back once they have left. Those who never leave or who do return often find themselves in settings that are ill-prepared to nurture families, develop human capital, and take advantage of the experience and skills that these people bring to the community.

Despite the overarching demographic and socioeconomic trends, rural residents are generally optimistic about their lives and futures in their communities. According to recent surveys conducted by the Harvard Opinion Research Program, the majority of rural Americans hold negative views about their local economy and a large portion experience financial insecurity, but they also feel engaged in their communities and are hopeful that most issues can be corrected in the near future. The surveys identify a host of problems related to employment, housing, substance abuse, health care, and social isolation but respondents generally expressed appreciation for the safety and quality of life in their communities. Of course, the relative level of satisfaction likely has as much to do with the racial, cultural, and economic background of the survey’s respondents. The study reported more difficulties from members of racial or ethnic minority groups and people with disabilities living in these communities, including a significant discrepancy between how minorities and non-minorities view discrimination and general treatment of non-majority residents.

This blinkered view of rural America–both from its residents and from those observing at a distance–is likely what makes the real problems of decline seem so intractable. Certainly it contributes to the variance of the narrative based on where it is coming from. What emerges from countless books, reports, policy papers, articles, opinion pieces, and blog entries is subject to interpretation through a variety of political, social, and cultural filters. On the one hand, it is easy to believe that rural America is doomed, especially the really hard-hit areas that cannot seem to catch a break. On the other hand, there are many indications of resilience and a willingness of these communities to adjust, adapt, and fight on despite the odds. For many people, both urban and rural, geography is destiny and the ability to stay, leave, or return is largely a matter of relative means and privilege. The affective impact of the narrative often becomes one of cautionary wistfulness: what do we lose as a country when such a significant part of it is clearly threatened by trends we understand but appear to have no power to control?  How bad does it have to get before we muster the political will for substantive collective action to fix things? With few exceptions, the consensus around the narrative seems to be that rural America is worth saving, but there is little agreement about how this might be accomplished without further enabling the urbanization trends that harm remote rural areas in the first place.

Robert Wuthnow described how the rural experience manifests in a patchwork of moral communities throughout the country centered around education, faith, and work, and embodied in the disappearing rural institutions of the schoolhouse, church, and farmstead.[1] These moral communities are bound by common experience and values developed across generations, which helps them weather disruptions and adapt to change. However, the ability of communities to exist in the relative autonomy and independence of previous eras is rapidly disintegrating and many of the resulting changes are unwelcome. A recurring theme throughout rural American  history–in areas entirely settled by outsiders–is the resistance to newcomers. Although the demographic composition of rural communities varies throughout the United States, with the exception of Native American reservations and other anomalous communities, rural residents tend to be white and of European descent, with increasing numbers of people from Latin America settling into these areas on a temporary or permanent basis. This growing diversity in rural America represents one of the clearest links between the urban and rural cultural dichotomy, which, in combination with language and other cultural differences, engenders a potent strain of identity-based resentment among the majority population. Ugly and violent distortions of traditional white masculinity have been present for decades in rural America, but its recent outward activity is mostly relegated to the political fringes.

However, American history is full of examples of community identity being tied to and expressed through political activity, and as the real or perceived impact of decline advances, a more rigid political landscape across rural America appears to be developing. According to Jon Lauck, the 2016 election offered evidence of a growing rural identity or consciousness that seeks less to highlight issues important to its communities, than to cast themselves in opposition to the interests in Washington D.C., New York City, Hollywood, and other urban areas that have appeared to ignore their plight and assist their demise.[2] This seems to be driven by a last-stand mentality, a final striking out against the enemies of a way of life that was at one time the defining model of the American experiment. Thus, the decline narrative finds rural communities looking backward and preoccupied with capturing the essence, if not the substance, of lifeways that have passed. The prospect of actual annihilation increasingly overshadows the symbolic annihilation or misrepresentation that these communities have always experienced to some degree, if not to the exaggerated extent that some political opportunists claim. To many communities and their inhabitants, the current moment represents a historical tipping point, made more real by the ongoing upheaval of the COVID-19 pandemic, the overdue reckoning on racial justice, the possibility of a long recession, and the certainty of a contentious national election.

So what does this mean for archives and archivists? In researching her memoir of growing up poor in rural Kansas, Sarah Smarsh refers to the difficulty of locating adequate resources “to piece together a family history from the ill-documented chaos that poverty begets.”[3] Smarsh’s account spans the Farm Crisis years to present day and surfaces important issues around the lack of understanding of marginal communities that seem, on the surface, to be adequately represented in the public consciousness. However, the representation of the rural poor–regardless of what other intersectional identity categories they embody–in archives and other collecting institutions is equally problematic. Memory and cultural institutions have long documented agriculture, agribusiness, small towns, and rural life to some degree, but this tends to focus on official records and notable or powerful residents who are almost always men. As such, the stories of working poor, women, minority groups, immigrants, non-mainstream subcultures, and others lacking political, social, and economic capital are typically lost through neglect, hostility, or indifference. Anne Effland attributes this lack of historical understanding to the limited scope given to the domain of what we consider to be rural, which is undoubtedly reflected in the documentation of rural communities.[4] Certainly nowadays “rural” no longer equates strictly to “farming,” and it has not for some time now. Understanding the complex identities and issues associated with the decline of rural communities requires archival efforts that acknowledge the political, demographic, and socioeconomic variation in and among those communities.

But even with the archives profession turning more toward community focused approaches to research and practice, rural communities have been largely absent from the disciplinary literature. Searches for articles in all major archival studies publication databases turned up scant reportage on documenting rural communities, subjects, issues, or historical trends, even in the region-specific journals. This sentiment was captured in a panel session called “Documenting Flyover Land” for the Midwest Archives Conference annual meeting in 2018, which sought to highlight specific archival projects related to the rural Midwest. In the introduction to the session, panel chair Christina Hansen spoke about the urban bubble that even most Midwesterners live in suddenly bursting after the 2016 election results.[5] What was described by many pundits and politicos (and certainly many liberal-learning archivists) as the horrific outcome of resentment-based politics only partially reflected the reality; it also signalled something deeper about rural America and its desire to make its voice heard. It should also have signaled to archivists that the call for a truly representative record and profession is disingenuous if the rural perspective continues to be pushed aside in our work and discussions. The response from archivists is yet to be determined.

Fostering a sense of place, representation, and belonging may not be enough to reverse decades of unfavorable trends, but memory institutions have a distinct role to play in how rural communities conceive of themselves in various regional, national, and global contexts. As such, these institutions have an opportunity to exert an affective and intellectual influence on their communities, grounded in shared history and experience, as its members look toward their uncertain individual and collective futures. By helping communities understand, document, and celebrate their past, archives and other memory institutions can serve as change agents that provide reassurance of a community’s role in its own destiny. By providing an outlet to and for information, education, and culture they can help these communities articulate their stories and values, and help ease the transition to different modes of living. And another big transition is already underway, whether or not anyone involved is ready.

[1] Wuthnow, R. (2018). The left behind: Decline and rage in rural America. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press.

[2] Lauck, J. K. (2017). Trump and the Midwest: The 2016 presidential election and the avenues of Midwestern historiography. Studies In Midwestern History, 3(1), 1-24.

[3] Smarsh, S. (2018). Heartland: A memoir of working hard and being broke in the richest country on earth. New York: Scribner.

[4] Effland, A. B. W. (2000). When rural does not equal agricultural. Agricultural History, 74(2), 489-501.

[5] Hansen, C., Anderson, M., Beckey, J., Chumachenko, V., & Dunn, R. (2018, March). Documenting flyover land. In C. Hansen (Chair), Blurring boundaries, crossing lines: The 2018 Midwest Archives Conference annual meeting. Panel session conducted at the meeting of the Midwest Archives Conference, Chicago, Illinois.

by Categories: Archivists on the IssuesTags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

Archivists on the Issues: A Defense of Institutions in the Pandemic

Archivists on the Issues is a forum for archivists to discuss the issues we are facing today. The following post is from Bradley J. Wiles, a PhD student in Information Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, School of Information Studies. 

The COVID-19 pandemic promises to be a game changer in many areas of contemporary society moving forward. Aside from the devastating mortality currently unfolding, the most immediate impact involves severe disruptions in healthcare systems, economic activity, and supply chain management, all of which have short and long term consequences for communities depending on the depth and scale of the damage in a given location. A major outcome so far is that the pandemic has forced people and organizations to rethink and reconfigure daily interactions previously taken for granted, both as a response to stemming the spread of the virus in real time and in preparation for future disruptions. For many individuals and organizations, virtual interaction through networked digital technologies has been the main route of accessing or retaining some sense of normalcy during this trying time.

In some instances, the ability (and often privilege) to utilize online communications and cloud-based applications offer the only possibility of keeping employed, delivering education, receiving medical treatment, reaching out to loved ones, and participating in other aspects of everyday life. Although the drastic modification of these and other social activities is likely temporary, the pandemic demonstrates that the value of the internet to maintain social cohesion is beyond question (if often problematic) and that many people and organizations can no longer get by without it. Ideally, this era will spark productive conversations and activity on digital infrastructure development that extends from matters of life and death during the pandemic to more prosaic cultural interests in less extraordinary times.

For better or worse, the cultural world has experienced something of a digital flourishing during this extended social distancing period. Concerts, plays, lectures, book readings, and other cultural events that were previously accessible to limited audiences are now offered regularly and freely in real time via various conferencing platforms, social media outlets, and streaming services. Approximating normalcy, staving off boredom, and raising spirits seem to be the main motivations of these efforts, but these also serve to bolster online communities and their cultural correspondents by keeping the focus of cultural interests within the online environment where so much other activity already occurs.

For their part, many individuals and organizations in the archives sector have tried to maintain their regular duties and transition further to online delivery of services. A recent post in Atlas Obscura described several notable projects aimed at engaging new and existing user communities through the web. These and other ongoing institutional efforts reflect theoretical discussions and practical trends in the archives discipline that emphasize the growing importance of community-based initiatives to expand their scope and direction toward greater inclusion and representation, while also supporting the network of non-institutional cultural heritage interests in documenting an increasingly diverse society.

The proliferation of web-based technologies has helped facilitate the growth of independent community archives, as well as enabling traditional archives to establish more targeted documentation strategies and projects that incorporate the expertise, perspectives, and labor of non-archivist collaborators in everything from collection development to public programming to archival description. The prevailing notion is that archival work can no longer discount the people, groups, cultures, and identities reflected in the collections and that, whenever possible, those who might legitimately speak on their behalf should be involved. Often these are current or prospective audiences that can bring a fuller understanding to the collections–a process made more immediate and accessible by mobile digital networks and social media utilities.

Undoubtedly, sustained effort to engage new and diverse publics is a moral and practical necessity for all archives institutions in this emergent digital reality heightened by the pandemic, regardless of one’s location in the overarching network of cultural interests. The pandemic also offers an opportunity for American archivists and other records and information professionals to advocate on behalf of our institutions and our shared principles as a bulwark against the entrenched difficulties of reaching common ground on facts, evidence, and truth in a tribalist and politically polarized society. Journalist David Roberts has spent the past several years tracking this “epistemic crisis,” which he links to comprehensive right-wing attempts at undermining public faith in government, academia, media, and science¹. We see firsthand how dangerous this is in the current administration’s woefully inadequate, dishonest, and fatalistic approach to a national and global emergency.

However, this only tells part of the story. Various strains of the skeptical relativism that characterize the current social and political landscape are residual holdovers of intellectual movements originating in the academic left during the 1960s and 1970s. Although many of these movements were focused on peace, justice, equality, and liberation, they were fundamentally based on mistrust of institutions. It is most definitely a stretch to draw moral equivalency between armed protestors railing against social distancing measures in 2020 with activists marching to protest the Vietnam War in 1968, but the impulse to react and respond to real and perceived threats from powerful institutions transcends political identification and ideology.

The personalized information universes enabled by the web now make it easier for groups and individuals to coalesce around a narrow agenda or set of beliefs without having to engage in wider discussions that contradict these. Everybody has their own unfalsifiable truth and nobody can deny anyone else’s reality. In this setting, facts and evidence supported by verifiable information and reliable records are meaningless, or rather they hold only situational meaning and arbitrary relevance. Institutions are suspect because they are gatekeepers incapable of serving all equally or effectively.

Undermining an institution involves discrediting its experts, rejecting its animating ideas or mission, disparaging its central functions, and casting doubt on its social value and historical legitimacy. In most instances, this arises against an institution’s authority from an external oppositional standpoint, but with archives the opposition and skepticism frequently originate within the profession. This often takes the form of critical evaluation and deliberative efforts by scholars and practitioners to improve institutions. But there are several intellectual and activist strands that seem equally intent on categorizing mainstream archives institutions as just another tool of systemic oppression, an irredeemable cog in the larger framework of white supremacy, colonialism, misogyny, economic exclusivity, heteronormativity, etc.

Certainly, there are many instances over time that justify a skeptical or even pessimistic position on mainstream or traditional archives. There’s no doubt that the prominence of community-centered models based around intersectionality and social justice in recent disciplinary conversations reflects attempts to redress such historical marginalization. Although there seems to be general consensus in the profession that this is a net positive for archives, I don’t think anyone can determine with any certainty what the long-term impact of this shifting focus might be on the mainstream institutional networks or on the historical record more generally. That said, precarity related to funding, technology, and administration all present more of a threat to traditional archives than the muddled postmodern criticisms of scholars, but the lack of any comprehensive defense of institutions in the face of inward criticism and outward threats is still very unfortunate.

It is my belief that a positive defense of institutions must be made to internal skeptics and external parties that are unaware of the value that archives provide. This is not a “you’re either for us or against us” proposition, but rather a reminder of the important role that institutions play in cultural memory and democratic stability. If the past few years have revealed anything about power and authority, it is how easily norms can be discarded by unprincipled leadership. If the COVID-19 pandemic teaches us anything, it is that information, facts, and evidence are a matter of life and death. It should be clear by now that our institutions are largely responsible for holding the line against historical threats, both those posed by rare natural phenomena and others resulting from the epistemological free-for-all of the digital age. Archives institutions are flawed but essential social assets that still offer the possibility of finding common ground and preserving the truth.

¹ See the following articles for more reportage and details on Roberts’ view: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/3/22/14762030/donald-trump-tribal-epistemology; https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/11/2/16588964/america-epistemic-crisis; https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/11/16/20964281/impeachment-hearings-trump-america-epistemic-crisis

by Categories: Archivists on the IssuesTags: , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

Steering Share: Meet Sara DeCaro

Steering Shares are an opportunity to find out more about the I&A Steering Committee. This post comes courtesy of committee member Sara DeCaro, the university archivist at Baker University Library. 

 

Profile Pic Greece1) What was your first experience working with archives?

I was lucky enough receive the Mary Louise Meder Internship in the State Archives division of the Kansas Historical Society when I was working on my MLS. It was a great introduction to archives, and it was paid! I wrote finding aids for two collections of personal papers and did some work with Kansas Memory, the KSHS’ digital image website. I enjoyed every minute of it, too. It reaffirmed my decision to pursue a career in archives.

 

 

2) What do you hope to gain by being on the I&A Steering Committee?

I initially became a part of I&A because I had never served on a committee in any of the professional organizations I belong to, and I&A seemed to match my interests. This is my second year on the steering committee, and I already feel like I’ve gained a lot. Having the opportunity to work on our temporary labor survey was meaningful to me personally, as someone who has held temporary positions in the past, and although analyzing all that data was a bit challenging, I learned a great deal. One of my Steering Shares from last year also led to participation in a panel discussion at the Annual Meeting in July, which was also a very worthwhile experience.

 

 

3) What is an archival issue that means a lot to you?

Low wages in the archives profession is a very important issue, in my opinion, and one that I’ve been able to explore as a result of my involvement in this committee. That was the focus of the panel discussion I mentioned before. It’s a widespread problem in the archives world, for a number of reasons. I knew that after reading the responses to our survey, but listening to the other panelists and hearing their stories made the scope of the problem very clear. I like being able to contribute to a solution, even if it is in a small way.

 

 

4) What can we find you doing outside of the archival profession?

I’ve recently started volunteering with Kansas City Pet Project, my local animal shelter. I wasn’t ready for a new pet when my cat passed away, but I missed cats and wanted to be around them. Shelter environments can be stressful for cats, so I’m glad I can give them a little comfort.

by Categories: Interviews, Steering ShareTags: , , , , , , Leave a comment

Steering Share: Meet Genna Duplisea

Steering Shares are an opportunity to find out more about the I&A Steering Committee. This post comes courtesy of committee member Genna Duplisea, archivist and special collections librarian at Salve Regina University.

genna_IAheadshot

1) What was your first experience working with archives?

After working in the library stacks my first year of college, I transferred my work-study to the Special Collections and Archives department because when I often walked by its glass doors and beautiful sculptural gates, I thought it looked interesting. For the rest of my time at Bowdoin, I was an assistant there, learning how to handle and organize everything from architectural plans to brittle folded nineteenth-century correspondence to newspaper clippings to masses of trophies. The collection was robust and the department busy, so I got to see the variety of research primary sources could provide. My supervisors encouraged enthusiasm about the collection and the environment allowed me to take joy in my work. One year for my grandfather’s birthday I found for him the alumnus file for a doctor from our family lore – he had delivered one of my ancestors on a kitchen table!

2) What do you hope to gain by being on the I&A Steering Committee?

Much of my reasoning for pursuing a career in archives is my desire to contribute positively to human rights and the environment. It can be difficult and overwhelming at work to stay grounded in the ever-changing landscape of concerns and ideas linking archives to social justice. Attending to the role of archives in combating prejudice and harm means advocating for our labor, too. Serving on the I&A Steering Committee will, I hope, help me do the things I entered this profession to do, by connecting me more closely to the work addressing social and environmental justice issues and placing me in a position to support or join in archival activism.


3) What is an archival issue that means a lot to you?

I see climate change as underpinning every problem and political issue because it affects every community. Archivists have a role in helping communities preserve and protect their heritage as the climate becomes more unpredictable, and we also have lot to do in addressing our profession’s carbon footprint. How do we perform memory work for changing and disappearing communities without further contributing to the source of that change? As part of Archivists Responding to Climate Change (ProjectARCC), I recently collaborated with other archivists on hosting Climate Teach-ins and hope to contribute to the growing body of writing on archives and climate change in the coming year.


4) What can we find you doing outside of the archival profession?

Reading, writing, and basic fiber crafting are also among my hobbies, which almost goes without saying in this profession. It cracks me up to around the room of archivists and seeing a bunch of people knitting during a presentation, which I have been known to do. Additionally, I’m not very sporty, but I love going for walks. There is a land trust in my community that maintains beautiful walking trails. I’m trying to learn more about the plants and birds I see and develop a stronger knowledge of the natural world. My houseplants are also doing all right.

by Categories: Interviews, Steering ShareTags: , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Steering Share: A Reading List for Practicing Allyship in Archives

Steering Shares are an opportunity to find out more about the I&A Steering Committee. This post comes from I&A Chair Courtney Dean, Head of the Center for Primary Research and Training in UCLA Library Special Collections.

ArchivesNotNeutral

For the final Steering Share of my term as I&A Chair I was planning to provide an update on our section’s temporary labor survey which closed earlier this month. (We had 412 responses!) Instead, when I sat down to write last evening, I quickly found myself going down the wormhole of comments about a recent blog post that was shared via Library Journal’s Twitter account. I won’t go into too much detail (you can look it up yourself) but for those unfamiliar with the situation, a WOC librarian wrote a blog post about the whiteness of library collections, and as so often happens when POC speak truth about racism, the internet trolls came out en masse. (I encourage those of you on Twitter to go in and report them. It’s a quick and somewhat satisfying process.) Appalling enough as it is to have THOUSANDS of strangers leaving vitriolic, hateful, and blatantly racist comments, while also posting photos of the author and details about her workplace, it was especially reprehensible to see other librarians attacking her.

As archivists we’re sometimes inclined to think we don’t have a similar whiteness problem in our field, however one only needs to look at the numbers, or recall the backlash to Dr. Michelle Caswell’s Dismantling White Supremacy session at SAA a few years ago. For all of our talk of diversity, equity, and inclusion, we still struggle to recruit and retain archivists of color, and to acknowledge bias in our collecting practices. To this day I have colleagues who refuse to recognize that archives are not neutral.

Instead of continuing to rely on the on the intellectual and emotional labor of POC colleagues to tirelessly critique and challenge this problematic myth of neutrality, I encourage my fellow white archivists to check out the reading list below and start practicing allyship. We can all be doing better.

Below is a brief reading list in no particular order:

Issues and Advocacy: Archivists On The Issues: Answering The Call For Inclusivity, Summer Espinoza https://issuesandadvocacy.wordpress.com/2018/07/18/archivists-on-the-issues-answering-the-call-for-inclusivity/

Issues and Advocacy: Archivists on the Issues: Reflections on Privilege in the Archives, Summer Espinoza https://issuesandadvocacy.wordpress.com/2018/02/09/archivists-on-the-issues-reflections-on-privilege-in-the-archives/

Issues and Advocacy: #ARCHIVESSOWHITE In The Words Of Jarrett Drake  https://issuesandadvocacy.wordpress.com/2016/04/19/archivessowhite-in-the-words-of-jarrett-drake/

Honma, T. (2005). Trippin’ Over the Color Line: The Invisibility of Race in Library and Information Studies. InterActions: UCLA Journal of Education and Information Studies, 1(2). Retrieved from https://escholarship.org/uc/item/4nj0w1mp

Joan M. Schwartz and Terry Cook, “Archives, records, and power: The making of modern memory” Archival Science (2002) 2: 1, https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02435628.

Lae’l Hughes-Watkins, “Moving Toward a Reparative Archive: A Roadmap for a Holistic Approach to Disrupting Homogenous Histories in Academic Repositories and Creating Inclusive Spaces for Marginalized Voices” Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies vol. 5, (2018) https://elischolar.library.yale.edu/jcas/vol5/iss1/6/

Nicole A. Cook Information Services to Diverse Populations: Developing Culturally Competent Library Professionals (California: ABC-CLIO, 2017)

Mario H. Ramirez (2015) Being Assumed Not to Be: A Critique of Whiteness as an Archival Imperative. The American Archivist: Fall/Winter 2015, Vol. 78, No. 2, pp. 339-356. https://doi.org/10.17723/0360-9081.78.2.339

Expanding #ArchivesForBlackLives to Traditional Archival Repositories, Jarrett Drake, June 27, 2016. https://medium.com/on-archivy/expanding-archivesforblacklives-to-traditional-archival-repositories-b88641e2daf6

Caswell, Michelle (2017).  Teaching to Dismantle White Supremacy in Archives.Library Quarterly: Information, Community, Policy, 87(3) 223-235. http://www.journals.uchicago.edu.libproxy.csudh.edu/doi/pdfplus/10.1086/692299

Caswell, Michelle & Brilmyer, Gracen (2016).  Identifying & Dismantling White Supremacy in Archives: An Incomplete List of White Privileges in Archives and Action Items for Dismantling Them.  http://www.gracenbrilmyer.com/dismantling_whiteSupremacy_archives3.pdf  

Taylor, Chris (2017). Getting Our House in Order: Moving from Diversity to Inclusion. The American Archivist, 80(1), 19-29. https://doi.org/10.17723/0360-9081.80.1.19

by Categories: Steering ShareTags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Archivists on the Issues: Archivists: The Superheroes of Time Travel

Archivists on the Issues is a forum for archivists to discuss the issues we are facing today. Today’s post comes from Joanna Black, the Digital Archivist at the Sierra Club’s William E. Colby Memorial Library.

Data-entry-clerk
Woman Data entry clerk entering data for legitimate online jobs. Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication

I am incredibly honored to release my first blog post as a contributor to the SAA Issues and Advocacy Section Archivists on the Issues Blog Series. In joining a distinguished pool of past writers, I hope to build on existing perspectives and suggest topics that reflect some of the broader issues archivists confront within an incredibly diverse profession. Whether one is a cataloger, digital asset specialist, processing archivist, or somewhere in between, it is imperative that archival professionals align the job with their own core values. As I reflect on the ways the archival profession creates positive change in the world and how many other livelihoods simply don’t — specifically those that utilize cheating, harming, or killing to advance a “bottom-line” — I can’t help but ask, “How do I hold my values in one hand and perform hours of data entry with the other, without losing sight of the greater goal?”

It is early afternoon toward the end of a long work week. A spreadsheet stretches wide across two oversized computer monitors. I am dizzy from scanning rows, columns, and boxes, inputting endless metadata. I pause, close my eyes to reset my vision, and gaze back at my sheet. Though at times I crave a good spreadsheet, I can only sit with one for so long until I think, “What am I doing with my life?” I have to step back and remind myself that although the spreadsheet may sometimes be a challenging part of my job, it has great significance. In preserving the “stuff” of the past — context, provenance, metadata, the nitty, gritty details that breathe life into collections — I can draw a direct connection between the duties of my nine-to-five job and the values that drive my life.

time_travel
Time Travel by Randall Munroe

Without knowing it, time travel is what led me to a career in archives. While pursuing a creative writing degree at San Francisco State University and interning at the Poetry Center & American Poetry Archives, I became enthralled with archives and the notion ofaccessibility. In working with my first archival object — a 1967 recording of Allen Ginsberg chanting the “Wichita Vortex Sutra” — it became immediately clear to me that people need to know these materials from the past exist; otherwise, what’s the point of preserving them? At that moment, I knew working with archival materials had some kind of intrinsic positive power to connect people across time. By recognizing archivists’ ability to time travel through memory, my drive to correct the wrongs of the past by amplifying experiences of the historically silenced took on new momentum.

ImmigrantFamiliesSigns
LGBT families for immigration reform, by Christopher Edwards

As an archivist today, I’ve built upon my roots in creative writing and pursue work that supports positive social and environmental justice reform. For three years, I served as the head archivist at the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Historical Society, an LGBTQ non-profit that “collects, preserves, exhibits and makes accessible to the public materials and knowledge to support and promote understanding of LGBTQ history, culture and arts in all their diversity.” Since summer 2018, I have been serving as the first staff archivist at the Sierra Club’s William E. Colby Memorial Library, a special collections library documenting the club’s 127 year history in environmental justice. In both positions, I have been able to merge my personal and professional passions to build a more equitable, inclusive, and just world by protecting and disseminating truth through the archival record. Whereas creative writing was an early mode for these intentions to manifest, archival work serves my passions even more broadly. Archivists, much like poets, are truth tellers; we share not just the loud truths, but the quiet truths whispered by those whom history often erases.

DC-Climate-March-2017-1070304_(33977952010)
Photos taken at the 2017 DC Climate March on April 29, 2017, by Mark Dixon

At a Sierra Club staff meeting last month, the Executive Director of the organization spoke about some of the club’s most recent victories. At the conclusion of his speech he said, “Our job is to change what people think is possible.” For archivists — the superheroes of time travel, the truth tellers of the past — it is especially relevant. Our individual pasts, stories, and experiences have enriched an increasingly diverse profession strengthened by differences in perspective. And with these differences, we each come to the profession out of a personal desire to make the world a more equitable, honest place. When archivists uncover truths, they stitch a small thread into a massive cultural and historic fabric, changing the pattern of that fabric for centuries to come.

Any time the spreadsheet doldrums get me down, I take a moment to remind myself of why I got into the archives profession all those years ago. Being an archivist is more than just a job; it is a means of traveling through collective memory and defending truths. Knowing that the ramifications of archival work stretch across space and time, archival professionals can be secure in knowing that we are true time travelers fueled by a passion to spread truth and promote greater justice. This is our professional foundation. The spreadsheet is simply a brick.

by Categories: Archivists on the IssuesTags: , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Archivists on the Issues: Archives as Art, Part 1

Archivists on the Issues is a forum for archivists to discuss the issues we are facing today. Today’s post comes from a regular writer for I&A’s blog, Cate Peebles. Cate is the NDSR Art fellow at the Yale Center for British Art, where she works with permanent-collection-related born-digital records. This is part 1 of a 2-part essay.

To conclude my blog series about archives as prominent cultural and artistic influences, I’ll turn to the visual arts, a broad and varied category, to be sure. As an archivist at an art museum, I am highly aware of the importance institutional archives can have within museums as historical records of the museum itself, or as repositories for artists’ archives, but there are also countless examples of archives, archival materials, and archival practices as major forces within an artwork, or the artwork itself.

To consider the archive as an artistic medium in and of itself, it is helpful to begin with James O’Toole’s essay, “The Symbolic Significance of Archives,” an important piece of writing by an archivist on the aesthetic and transformative qualities inherent in the role of some documents. His examination of archives as symbolic entities casts light on a side of the archival profession that had not yet been given much attention by archivists themselves, although many visual artists have been working in “the archival mode” since the early 20th century. Archivists are trained to care for records of enduring value and emphasis is placed on “utilitarian motivations for the making of written records” [1]. O’Toole begins his discussion with an invocation of Frank Burke’s 1981 essay, “The Future Course of Archival Theory in the United States,” in which he provokes archivists to consider archives beyond their practical operations and use, and to ask larger, more philosophical questions of the profession, such as “what is the motivation for the act” of recordkeeping and making.

O’Toole’s very question suggests that there is more to records than their practical uses, however dismissed these uses may have been by the majority of archivists who agreed with Lester Cappon’s conjecture that there is nothing to theorize about; the job of the archivist is to “shuffle the damn papers.”[2] Indeed, the conversation about archival theory that Burke began in the late 20th century seems to have caused some rancor among many archivists who stick firmly to the school of thought that archival records are purely practical. This, O’Toole argues extensively, excludes the role of archives and records as symbolic objects. By examining examples from history, such as the Declaration of Independence and the Domesday Book, O’Toole demonstrates the manner in which a document can change from being a record that is useful in the traditional sense, into a record whose use extends beyond practicality and conveys meaning symbolically. Since the very essence of an archival document lies in its having transitioned from primary to secondary use, it follows that the secondary use is not necessarily always going to be practical in the evidentiary sense.  O’Toole’s discussion concludes, significantly, by affirming that archival records can have both practical and symbolic uses; one side is not more important than the other, and if we value archives and archival materials solely for their practical features, we are missing half the picture.

In the twentieth century, the use of archival materials as artistic media became increasingly popular, particularly with the arrival of conceptual art and structuralism on the scene. In her seminal lecture, A Voyage on the North Sea” Art in the Age of the Post-Medium Condition, art critic and professor of art history at Columbia University, Rosalind Krauss presents a discussion of art that does not belong to classical modes and mediums like painting and sculpture, but incorporates any number of expressive modes.[5]  She describes a break from traditional classifications and a movement toward mixed media, video art, installations, readymades (like those made by Marcel Duchamp), collections, and conceptual art. The latter might even lack physical form; the ideas and contextual performance are the artwork.

Krauss focuses on the work of Belgian poet and artist Marcel Broodthaers, who created a fictitious museum called “The Museum of Modern Art, Eagles Division” around which he built collections of objects, such as an installation of stuffed eagles and other objects pertaining to the eagle, much like one might see presented in a natural history museum. Each object is labeled, not with information about its species, but with the admission (joke?): “This Is Not a Work of Art.” Broodtaears picks up where Duchamp left off, creating an imaginary museum, structured around readymades and antiquated modes of display, poking fun at art world expectations and conventions. Broodthaers’ work is often referred to as “institutional critique,” a form that attempts to call out the inner workings of establishments such as the museum and archive; official spaces that command respect, embody some degree of power (financial, intellectual), and authority.

This shift has made the work of many contemporary artists possible such as the work of Lebanese-American artist, Walid Raad. While Broodthaers re-envisions the colonialist structure that names, categorizes and capitalizes upon fine arts, Raad reimagines the archive as a structure wherein truth is not tied to fact while still relying on archives’ hydra-like power to tell many stories at once.

References

[1] O’Toole, James. “The Symbolic Significance of Archives,” The American Archivist, 1982, 234-255

[2] Ibid., 235

[3] Craig and O’Toole, 98

[4] Ibid., 98

[5] Krauss, Rosalind, A Voyage on the North Sea: Art in the Age of the Post-Medium Condition (New York: Thames and Hudson, 1999), 5

by Categories: Archivists on the IssuesTags: , , , , , , 1 Comment

News Monitoring Team: Indian Schools and Historical Othering

The News Monitoring Research Team works on archives and archivists issues in the news. This post, part of our Research Post series, was written by Steering Committee member and team coordinator Steve Duckworth.

For our last official News Monitoring Team post of the season, I thought I would step out of my role as the Coordinator of the News Team and talk a bit about something from a story that popped up last month. The article, turned up by one of the News Team members, focuses on the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, an “Indian” boarding school in Carlisle, PA that operated from 1879 to 1918.

This struck a chord with me as issues around America’s indigenous peoples and archives and cultural artifacts have been on my mind frequently in my career, ever since my first full-time position with the National Park Service in Alaska and lasting through to today as I work in the Pacific Northwest and hear about projects and programs around the historical mistreatment of these communities (not to mention the similar information coming from Canada). But I had also just read Kate Theimer’s recent post on the Carlisle Indian School and the text of her talk, “Archiving Against the Apocalypse,” for the Canadian-American Archives Conference. I also spent a good chunk of my life living in Philadelphia and Allentown, PA, so a confluence of things held this story in my mind.

While curating an exhibit on public health in the early 20th century last year, I stumbled upon the theory of eugenics, which I’ll admit I hadn’t really ever heard of (and I’ve spent a lot of my life in school). Turns out the U.S., during the later parts of the 1800s and early parts of the 1900s, was really into the idea of creating a purer race of people. Sound familiar? Yeah, American eugenics actually inspired Hitler and that whole Nazi race-purifying thing. Doctors, government workers, and regular Joes alike were all into the idea of weeding out “defective” and “undesirable” traits through controlling who got to reproduce through court-ordered sterilization and segregation, and with “child guidance” clinics that remind me of more recent gay conversion institutions. This didn’t end all that long ago; Oregon’s eugenics board lasted until 1983, having carried out its last sterilization in 1981.

Indian schools were a slightly earlier version of population control. White, European-Americans of the 1800s wanted to assimilate indigenous people into their culture. They thought if they removed youths from their families, language, culture, and traditions, and trained and educated them in European style, they could eventually breed out the “savage” aspects of their people. It was a way of exterminating the indigenous people of their new country that was considered more civil and socially acceptable than all out murder or war. Though, as you can see from recent reports, beatings, illness, and death were all common outcomes for these students.

The Carlisle school was America’s first, off-reservation boarding school, but it wasn’t the last. Twenty six boarding schools were established across the country, along with hundreds of private religious schools. Over 10,000 children attended the Carlisle school alone, with estimates of over 100,000 children total throughout the system. Canada’s similar system, the Residential Schools, lasted into the 1970s and had over 150,000 “students.” (Canada’s system was also more heavily documented and the government has been a lot more public about speaking out about it, most likely due to the unprecedented class-action lawsuit survivors brought against the government.)

So, first eugenics got stuck in my mind, and now I keep learning about more and more ways in which atrocious acts have been committed, for this reason or that (have you listened to the Seeing White podcast series?), which all really boil down to othering certain groups to keep the white people on top – assimilation, cleansing, separation, racial purity, etc. And I think, damn, we humans are really horrible (this, itself, is not really a revelation for me, but more of an expansion).

But humans can also manage to do some good here and there. So, and here I relate it back to archives, it’s painful to learn of this history, but it’s refreshing (in a way) to read stories of how archival records and cultural history are being used to return remains, artifacts, memory, and culture to people who have been wronged by our country (and others) – and perhaps even provide some healing to the wronged. These acts of restitution provide some concrete examples that can be used to influence archival ethics and practices today and perhaps encourage people to look up and out from their lives and small worlds, to see far afield and take in the big picture of all of us on this planet and what we’re doing to each other.

My goal here isn’t so much to bring about change through this short post, but more to add another voice to the education on happenings such as this and to help make connections between what we do in our daily work that could potentially have a huge benefit. Also I want to urge people with these types of historical records (or even more contemporary records), to not hide from the past. Face it and work to better the future.

 

Resources and additional information

Listed chronologically, starting with the most recent

by Categories: Research PostTags: , , , , , , , , 2 Comments