Dykes on Mykes: Podcasting and the Activist Archive

Abstract

As stated by jake moore of the Matricule Project,1 archive is both noun and verb. As a noun, the archive is both physical repository, where materials are stored for preservation and for perusal, and reference point, where the records are consulted. As a verb, the archive functions as a social project of history building and a facilitator for storytelling. The archive, as imagined by moore, ceases to exist without being in process: acquiring documents, being accessed and utilized, articulated and critiqued. In essence, the archive ceases to exist when it is no longer engage in creating, recreating and telling stories. The archive thus becomes a site of inquiry, shifting from source for research to subject of research, for which academics and activists alike must “pay attention to the process of archiving, not just to the archive as a repository of facts and objects” (Arondekar 2005: 15). The online archive simultaneously builds from and undoes the archival project through its expansive and largely unregulated context and participatory process; it is a challenge to archival fixity and to conceptions of time and place as markers of identity.