Course talk:ARST573/Archives and Power

Hi Evan, I really like your new section on Opening Description. My paper for Giovanni's class briefly discussed how user-generated descriptions challenge and destabilize archival authority. Some articles that touch on this (and may be helpful) are the following:

Conway, Paul and Ricardo Punzalan. “Fields of Vision: Toward a New Theory of Visual Literacy for Digitized Archival Photographs.” Archivaria 71 (2011): 63-97. http://archivists.ca/content/e-archivaria

Yakel, Elizabeth. “Inviting the User Into the Virtual Archives.” International Digital Library Perspectives 22 no.3 (2006): 159-163. doi: 10.1108/10650750610686207

I have one more recommended source that I came across today. It is an entire book, available as an e-book from UBC. Archive Stories Facts, Fictions, and the Writings of History It looks like Part 1 - Close Encounters: The Archives as Contact Zone would have some relevant material.

Hey Evan! I think you should rework the voice you use in this. You tend to use a lot of opinions and argument in your writing and wikis a more cited statement after cited statement.

Good luck!

Hi Evan, you have written an interesting start here, as always. One section I think you might consider adding is on the topic of voices in archives, particularly for disenfranchised groups in society, and what the responses of these groups have been (ie establishing movement specific archives).

Hi Evan, I was thinking along the same lines as Rob -- about the silences in the archives and the power (or lack thereof) that comes from this. Going with Rob's mention of establishing movement specific archives, I will write a little on this in the context of First Nations Archives. Maybe we could link to each other's wiki pages?

Hi Evan,

I think this echoes some of the comments others have posted, but it would be helpful to provide a bit more of an introduction before diving into Derrida. Also, if you are going to bring up the concept of phenomenology, it would be helpful to provide a brief explanation of the term (if that's possible!). Finally, you bring up Foucault within the section Derrida's Framework. It seems like this portion should either exist as its own section, or the title of the section should be change to reflect your inclusion of both theorists.

Good start overall though! I don't envy your task of putting Derrida into wiki language.

Katie

Hi Evan,

This suggestion might be a little off-base. Chelsea made some comments on my Wiki about Archives and Power in the context of copyright, and I was wondering if a section on archives and the law as an instrument to exercise power might be an interesting section. I'm not sure if it will fit in with your topic, but I think that the law either gives or withholds certain powers to archival institutions.

Hi, Evan.

I think in the context of Cristen's page, I was thinking about the power that archivists were given when the Canadian copyright law essentially required them to be "satisfied" that a patron was using copies of materials in a way that fell under fair dealing, meaning the archivist was really having to make a judgement call and give access accordingly. However, Cristen makes a good point about the law playing into the power of archives in many other ways, starting with various the records / archives acts in Canada.

That being said, you have a very complex topic here, so I can understand if you prefer to focus more on the areas you have already outlined. I am admittedly Not a Theory Person, so had a bit of a hard time following the first section "Commencement, Commandment, S/Citation: Phenomenological Approaches." For example, if you could expand on the phenomenological tradition a bit more for those of us not familiar with it, it would be a great help to me at least.

And to echo Robert's comment below, the section on "opening description" could be expanded to include things like community archives and how they are taking on the responsibility of being the keepers of their own history and narrative.

Very fascinating stuff, and I will enjoy learning more!

Hi Evan,

Looking good so far!

I just had a small suggestion about your wiki, and it relates to what Mariko suggested about using 'plain-language'. I've noticed a lot of your information is very focused on the prominent authors who write about power and archives, and while that would probably be a great approach for a research paper, perhaps it would be better (to stick with the 'plain language' suggestion) here to present their ideas without frequent reference to their names, and simply include them in the citations.

It's not often that you see a lot of direct references to exact authors in the text of the Wiki, so I think that while mentioning their prominence with regard to the subject of archives and power is a good idea, it might be best to steer clear of referring directly to them too much!

I would echo this observation and also suggest tweaking the tone of the entry. The wiki has many great ideas and at this stage reads very much like an academic essay. The conventional style for wikis is to make them more impartial. That is, more like an encyclopedia and less like an essay. For example, your introduction could start with higher level statements:

"Recent scholarship in archives have argued that archivists and archives weild substantial power through the records they manage and the role they play in society."

This, then, opens up a discussion of what is meant by power, how does it manaifest in archives, how can archivists exercise power, etc.

Hey Evan! I think it would be great if you linked this to oppressive regimes in some way. Maybe a short article and a link to the page on it.

-Rob

Hi Evan, your Wiki is full of concepts that are new to me, and I am excited to see how it unfolds and to learn new things. My suggestion for the moment is to include a short introduction in order to provide an overview of archives and power instead of jumping right into Derrida just so the reader knows what to expect since it's a concept that could go in so many directions!

Hi Evan,

What an interesting topic! I'm looking forward to seeing how it evolves over the next few weeks, especially the role of archives and national narratives... this reminds me of our visit to the CBC archives today and Colin's emphasis on community memory/narratives. Perhaps you could look at both national narratives and a more grassroots narrative in this section?

Also, just a little note - I think we were told to include a notice on the top of our wikis stating that they were still in the draft stage. You can do this by inserting {draft} at the top of your wiki source code on your edit page. You can also add categories to your wiki by inserting at the end of your wiki edit page.

Chelsea

Hey Evan,

I thought you might be interested in some of these papers (I used them for my A & D paper last semester) that deal specifically with power imbalance in archives: Carter, Rodney G.S. “Of Things Said and Unsaid: Power, Archival Silences, and Power in Silence.” Archivaria 61 (2006): 215-233. Cook, Terry and Schwartz, Joan M. “Archives, Records, and Power: From (Postmodern) Theory to (Archival) Performance.” Archival Science 2, (2002): 171-185. Duff, Wendy M. and Harris, Verne. “Stories and Names: Archival Description as Narrating Records and Constructing Meanings.” Archival Science 2, (2002): 263-285. Dunbar, Anthony W. “Introducing Critical Race Theory to Archival Discourse: Getting the Conversation Started.” Archival Science 6, (2006): 109-129. doi: 0.1007/s10502-006-9022-6 Harris, Verne. “The Archival Sliver: Power, Memory, and Archives in South Africa.” Archival Science 2, (2002): 63-86. Johnson, Valerie. “Creating History? Confronting the Myth of Objectivity in the Archive.” Archives xxxii, no. 117 (2007): 128-143. Johnston, Ian. “Whose History is it Anyway?” Journal of the Society of Archivists 22, no. 2 (2001): 213-229. Schaeffer, Roy C. “Transcendent Concepts: Power, Appraisal, and the Archivist as “Social Outcast”.” American Archivist 55, (1992): 608-619. Schwartz, Joan M. and Cook, Terry. “Archives, Records, and Power: The Making of Modern Memory.” Archival Science 2, (2002): 1-19.

Good luck!

Hey Evan, Great start! I'm not sure if you'll find this useful at all, but I found this article: http://archives.library.illinois.edu/workpap/SteppingOut.pdf. It may apply to your Objectivity vs. Neutrality section. And just a suggestion: your writing is always great, but I was wondering if it might be possible to use more plain language?

Thanks for the feedback, Mariko! This article looks like a great addition to the topic.