Course talk:ARST573/Postcolonial Archives

Hi Kelsey,

Great page! I've added your wiki to my "Related Wiki Pages" section - my page is Archives and Genocide. My one suggestion is related to linking. I wanted to learn more about the "New Zealand Archives' Polynesian Society Collection" but a google search didn't reveal a helpful link to the collection. Instead, there is a wiki page for the society that might be useful to include: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polynesian_Society.

Thanks for the suggestion! I will add that link in.

Hello Kelsey,

You've done a fantastic job with this subject and this page! The only further suggestion I can make at this point is to add a links for The New Zealand Archives in your "South Asia and Oceania" section and CABRICA and ACURIL in your "Caribbean" section as I think many people would like to explore that further of their own.

Also, do you have a reference for this sentence: "A similar problem has arisen in South Asia, where the indigenous elites were often employees of the colonial government."?

Again, well done!

Hey, Kelsey!

I just finished reading over your wiki. It's impressive, you've managed to cover a lot! I just have a couple of suggestions regarding organization.

Personally, I think you can make the Non-traditional records section it's own section-section, rather than a sub-section. I think that could also work for Reconciliation and Bi-Culturalism.

Good luck!

Hi Kelsey,

This looks really great and thorough in the coverage of the topic. I particularly like your final organization of your wiki, it presents the information nicely.

A few last minute comments:

• I recommend adding dates or time periods (for example 19th century) to your introduction so that readers know what to expect in your wiki.

• Same with the beginning of the "Africa" section under "Representations of Indigenous Groups." You mention "at a time when the continent was not well known or understood," however don't clarify when this time period is exactly until the end.

• In the "Caribbean" section under "Representations of Indigenous Groups," you have the sentence, "The Moyne Report of the British West Indies in the 1930s criticized the familial trends of West Indian people because of their high birth rates and frequency of illegitimate births." I recommend adding a citation here.

Hi Kelsey, You've done a really excellent job of covering such an extensive topic. I like how you've balanced such a text heavy wiki with multiple images and I also enjoyed your use of linking. I really struggle to give you any critique other than to echo a previous comment suggesting that more subheadings be added to some of the sections since they do get a bit dense. Another small editorial detail that I happened to noticed as I was reading through, you state that "Traditional records are still found in postcolonial archives.... but the knowledge systems and culture of places like Africa..." - the 's' is missing from cultures. Again, I really enjoyed your wiki! Kaitlin

Thanks! I tried breaking up some parts with more headings, and added a few more pictures where it looked too text-y. Also thanks for noticing the typo, I fixed it!

Hi Kelsey,

want to echo what everyone else had said so far, nice looking page and good use of images (great and very helpful map at beginning). I also think adding a modern slant to the topic makes it feel very "fresh" and immediately relevant (not saying it isn't already), and makes me appreciate more the history behind this area. I think it's an interesting decision to start off early with a challenges discussion in the two respective sections on colonial and postcolonial archives. My initial instinct would be to have this at a later point, but it actually works really well in the context of your wiki; helps set the tone for the content that follows. Also, your overview is one of the better ones I have read in terms of being succinct and capturing the spirit of your topic.

Do you think the Technology and Digitization section could be broken up a bit to make it easier to read/more organized? Not saying it's necessary, but something that just struck me at first blush when I was reading it.

And please feel free to connect your wiki to my wiki (Archival Advocacy) as I think there's some connection here.

Best,

V

Thanks for the feedback! I was thinking about breaking up the Technology section a bit...but I feel like too much of it can fall under "challenges." Maybe specifically it is like, preservation/infrastructure, cultural, and then legal? I have to think about it, I was also going to try to add a bit more to that part too.

Hi Kelsey,
Some few and final suggestions/comments for you:

• super neat hierarchy/ paragraphs. your wiki is really easy to read.
• Consider tweaking the title "Challenges" under your 2nd section"Decolonization and Archive-Building", to be consistent with how 1.1 = "Challenges in Colonial Archives" ; perhaps "Challenges in Archive-Building".
• also consider tweaking the title "Professional Education": it's not too clear - professional education development in the colonial areas or professional education as contributing to the development of postcolonial archives, or ....the effects of professional education training on the archival landscape in these colonial areas?, or all of the above?
• And, you're now the last one to receive this rave about referencing from me:

Christie gave me a big tip about referencing I wanted to share with you. My page was beginning to get very long because of all the "Ibid"s, and I figured out how to use sub-references so it goes [1 ] [1. 1] [1.2 ]...etc, and you can use them everywhere on your wiki where you repeat your references, and there is only one line down at the bottom. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Referencing_for_beginners under "Same references used more than once".

Hi Kelsey, If you decided to bring more of North America (Quebec, specifically) into the discussion, the Jesuits were excellent ('excellent') record-keepers, writing a ton of letters and reports sent back to France titled The Jesuit Relations. Might have to dig around to find out where the originals were kept and where they are now, but an interesting case study of colonial record-keeping if you decided to pursue it.

Unrelated, a quick editing suggestion. I'd revise the following section: "Another difficulty in nineteenth century colonial archives was that there simply were not trained archivists being sent to the colonies. Archival science was still in development in Europe itself, and colonial administrators tended to be mid- to low- level civil servants who did not necessarily have experience with record-keeping practices." It's very interesting and absolutely necessary discussing who was doing the record-keeping and what their background was. As we know, the archival profession looked very different in the 19th C. than today, and stating simultaneously that archival science was still in development but that having non-archival science-indoctrinated civil servants working in the colonies was an issue reads as a little contradictory and muddled. Was it really an issue then that these civil servants we're archivists in the sense of the word today? I would lead with your second sentence ("Archive science was still in development…") and develop your idea from there.

Hi Kelsey,

You've done a really great job with this page so far! I thought it was really nuanced, and well thought out. I've been having some trouble thinking of what types of images to add to my page, so I appreciated seeing how you've incorporated them.

One spellcheck point: the first sentence of the Archives Under Imperial Government Section switches tense half way through.

Christie

Thanks for pointing that out! I've fixed it.

Hi Kelsey,

Page is looking good! I especially like the coloured map at the top.

This week's suggestions:

• under your "Representations of Indigenous Groups" headings, there is the possibility of making 2 or more subheadings, just to make it look less text heavy, for example a heading for "New Zealand Archives' Polynesian Society collection" or even "Caribbean colonies" or something of the sort would fit nicely as a subheading, to make the text more readable and to separate your specific examples into themes.

• I think your Technology and Digitization section towards the end is extremely important and relative, however, in some ways do you think it is less of a major point in your overall wiki (it is heading 4), and more of a subheading, say under challenges?/and or equal to challenges? (i could be wrong; just exploring this idea) . OR, under the digitization section, since you mention major themes like "digital archives initiatives", "limited technology" or "opposition to archival digitization" > perhaps these could be subheadings as well?

• You've got lots of great content and resources; I think the main thing for me as a reader is that I would like to have more subheadings to help me scan through the main points of your wiki more easily.

JT

Hi,

I was literally just thinking that I should maybe put more headings in, so I appreciate you suggesting that as well!

I think my rationale for the placement of the Technology section is that it goes in a semi-chronologial order for top-level headings. It's not perfect, but it's what made sense for me. I was sort of hesitant to put too much stuff under "Challenges" just because...well, there are quite a lot of challenges in this situation! I will try to put more subheadings in there too though, I agree it's getting sort of wordy.

Hi Kelsey,

I was wondering if you plan to incorporate any images on your page since its a bit text heavy at the moment. I understand not all wiki's will benefit from images, however maybe a map of some sort would help contextualize the many places you discuss? Other than that, I really enjoy the additions you've made.

Yes, I am planning on adding pictures, I just hadn't gotten to it yet! I didn't think about using maps, but perhaps that would help because of the wide range of areas in this topic.

Hi Kelsey,

I really like the additions that you have done to your page. Just a couple of points for possible addition:

• Is there anything on postcolonial storage facilities?
• Are there any pictures or media you can add to the page?
• I assume you'll touch on this in your regional subsections, but how did postcolonial archivists receive their training? Were there workshops?

Maggie

Hi,

The point about storage facilities is interesting, I haven't seen much about that specifically (eg., data centres or physical space), aside from the preservation issues of tropical areas. I know some national archives buildings were build fairly recently, or are just part of existing institutions. I will look into this some more!

Hi Kelsey,

One thought that crossed my mind was to include some discussion about how colonial ideas of archives/recordkeeping were used/could be used to enforce colonial power. You touch on it in a couple areas but I think it could use futher expansion. Basically I thought of the Eddie Izzard flag skit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTduy7Qkvk8

Another thing that would be cool would be to see more examples or case studies, especially of 'successful' post-colonial archives (however you want to define successful).

Otherwise, very informative and interesting post that I look forward to checking out in more detail later!

-Adena

Hi, Thanks for the feedback. That's sort of what I was going for in the "Defence of Imperialism" section. As for case studies, I'm working on including them in other sections too!

Also that skit made me laugh, I hadn't seen that one before!

Hi Kelsey,

Your page is developing nicely, it is already very informative and it reads really well. You are probably planning on adding in some hyperlinks as you work on your page, but I just thought I would mention a couple that would be helpful to the reader in the introduction: independent states, colonies, imperial subjects, empire.

I wrote my short paper for this class on the National Archives of Trinidad and Tobago, and I found both MIGAN: Memory of the Islands (http://migan.org/), and CARBICA (http://www.carbica.org/) really interesting. These might be of interest for you for your discussion on Caribbean archives, just in case you haven't come across them yet.

Best, Hannah

Thanks for the links! Those are helpful; I was going to go into CARBICA under the professional education section, but I hadn't seen the Memory of the Islands before.

Hi Kelsey,

Your wiki page is coming along very nicely! I really like your modern approach to the topic with the section at the end on technology and digitization.

I have just a few comments. In the section "Representations of Indigenous Groups" you very briefly mention archives being used as ways to omit any humanizing representation of the colonized. Have you found anything further on this? Why they were seen as unimportant to record in the archives? What factors (e.g. relationships between colonized and mother country) created this practice? I really don't know anything about archives in this setting, so this was just an area I was more curious about as I read your page. I began thinking about areas where the colonized were seen as less than human, and how this impacted record creation and preservation for materials on them.

Also, are there specific examples from different countries that you could include in sections such as "Archives as Defense of Imperialism," "Representations of Indigenous Groups," "Establishing a New Identity," etc.? As I read these sections I found myself wanting to learn more about it with real examples.

Thanks for the feedback, I intend to go into a bit more detail on the section of representations under colonialism. Basically, what I've found is that there were certain individuals and groups who thought documenting indigenous culture was important, but that was generally in a scientific sense. That is, they were anthropologists, folklorists, ethnographers, who studied indigenous culture and therefore documented it in that way. I have read some compelling arguments about how that scientific interest was a reflection of the victorian/imperialist attitude of like, knowing about something is how you have control over it. This argument discusses how maps of regions were important to knowing what territory was owned by whom, and ethnographies are like the social/cultural extension of that. So, I might go into that a bit more, but I was sort of torn about how much academic discourse (eg., historiography and interpretations) would be appropriate for a wiki.

Hi Kelsey,

Suggestions I have so far include adding references to a few of your sentences. For example, the first sentence under "Establishing a New Identity" concerning decolonization movements after WWII needs a reference note; the last paragraph of "Representations of Indigenous Groups" feels like it needs more references/footnotes; and under "Challenges" (Decolonization/Archive-Building) the "highly one-sided view of the nations" needs a reference for support.

Also, perhaps there are places where you can use the Present Tense to indicate that Archivists are still grappling with certain issues, and that these issues are not confined to the past. Lastly, this sentence "Putting the power in the hands of the previously marginalized is the obvious answer" could we worded differently to keep objective/neutral wiki standpoint.

Jessica

Thanks for pointing that out, I sometimes get stuck writing in the past tense (too much writing about history I guess!)

Hi Kelsey, I really like how you've got your page laid out so far. This is such an interesting topic to take on! I'm looking forward to reading the professional education section, once you get it filled in. It sounds really cool. Quickly, I would like to nominate my page on Archives and Repatriation on one which might be relevant for your See Also section, as well as Alison's page on Archives in Southeast Asia.

Have you thought about including a section on critiques of people who refer to archives in currently colonized states like Canada, the US, Australia, etc as postcolonial? I can recommend a good article on this if you're looking for one, and since your overview of what a postcolonial archive is mentions North American and Oceanic Indigenous populations, it might be good to have that point of view included. You might already be planning on doing this, but just in case I thought I'd bring it up! Best, Allison

I actually noticed your page on repatriation right after I made the see also section, it is very closely related!

In terms of indigenous archives, I wasn't going to go into that part of it too much since it is something of a separate issue (and there's already a whole page on first nations archives) but I was going to talk about the issues with them that are shared with other postcolonial archives, one example being the inclusion of Maori records in the New Zealand National Archives and the emphasis on biculturalism in their institution. I'd be happy to see what article you're thinking of though, the issue of postcolonialism are definitely seen in the North American context as well.

The article I'm thinking of is by Matthew Kurtz. I've included the citation for it below!

Matthew Kurtz, “A Postcolonial Archive? On the Paradox of Practice in a Northwest Alaska Project,” Archivaria 61 (2006): 63-90.

I actually already have that one in my bibliography, I just haven't read it thoroughly yet! Thanks for the suggestion though :)

Hi Kelsey,

Your page is very clearly laid out and addresses all of the concerns I can think of in regards to postcolonial archives. Also, those are useful "See also" links at the bottom.

The only suggestion I can make at this point is to give specific examples of archives during colonialization and decolonization. though you may plan on addressing this in your "Professional Education" section, I think it would add to the first two sections as well.

That's a good point, I was sort of unsure of how much specificity I could go into, since colonial archives are pretty widespread and varied. I will try to include some particular examples to those sections though, I agree that it could add to them nicely.