Participatory description: decolonizing descriptive methodologies in archives

Abstract

By looking at current examples of participatory archives, this paper hopes to introduce and encourage a discussion of participatory description. How does an originating community describe their records? How can the nuances of another language be allowed for in archival description? Archival description helps to create access points for users, but archivists must ask the question, access for whom? This paper seeks to examine the existing state of archival description and to make recommendations for areas in which decolonizing methodologies might be employed to better address the nuances of multicultural, community, and participatory archives. A literature review is provided in order to examine the current state of archival description. As a second step, decolonizing methodologies are discussed and examined in order to establish a method by which description might become more participatory. Finally, some examples of archives in which participatory endeavors have been undertaken are presented, in order to establish models from which other archives can draw inspiration.