Preservation is Political: Enacting Contributive Justice and Decolonizing Transnational Archival Collaborations

T-Kay Sangwand

doi:10.5334/kula.36

Abstract

This article contributes to critical archival studies discourse and builds upon the theoretical and practical work accomplished under the postcustodial rubric in order to propose an archival framework that is explicitly oriented in the service of justice. Global north/south postcustodial collaborations highlight the ethical and practical obligation of adopting an archival framework that accounts for expanded notions of stewardship and narrative agency. As an archivist based in US academic libraries who works primarily on transnational archival collaborations in the global south, I want to introduce the concept of contributive justice to these postcustodial transnational collaborations because it reframes the role of the partner organization in the global south and acknowledges the agency of all partners (Gomberg 2007). By drawing upon my experiences facilitating transnational archival partnerships between US academic libraries and institutions in Cuba, El Salvador, and Rwanda, I build upon Michelle Caswell’s (2017) suggested actions for dismantling white supremacy within US archives by offering concrete ways archivists can utilize a contributive justice framework to decolonize archival practices (i.e., appraisal, description, access) within transnational partnerships. By offering these examples, we can begin to both imagine and enact a more just and liberatory archival praxis. As Caswell states, ‘through the lens of liberatory archival imaginaries, our work … does not end with the limits of our collection policies, but rather, it is an ongoing process of conceptualizing what we want the future to look like’ (2014a: 51). The stakes are high in the shaping of our collective histories, and we all have the responsibility of envisioning and enacting liberatory archival futures.

Highlights

The work of preserving and presenting the past is inherently political, whether it is in overt acts such as preserving Confederate statues or documenting the stories of genocide survivors, more insidious acts such as privileging elite voices in archives’ appraisal policies, or quietly subversive acts such as centering indigenous epistemologies over colonial US references in archival description
As the world witnessed in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017 with the killing of social justice activist Heather Heyer by James Alex Fields Jr. at a white nationalist rally protesting the removal of a Confederate statue, lives are literally at stake as we negotiate whose narratives shape the historical record and public memory
This article aims to contribute to critical archival studies discourse in two ways: 1) by introducing the concept of contributive justice to postcustodial praxis in order to situate postcustodial praxis within an explicitly social justice framework for ‘the ultimate goal of transforming archival practice and society writ large’ (Caswell, Punzalan, and Sangwand 2017: 2; Gomberg 2007); and 2) by using the concept of contributive justice to build upon Michelle Caswell’s (2017) suggestions for dismantling white supremacy in US archives and expand upon their application in a transnational context in order to decolonize postcustodial collaborations between global north and south institutions

Summary

Introduction

The work of preserving and presenting the past is inherently political, whether it is in overt acts such as preserving Confederate statues or documenting the stories of genocide survivors, more insidious acts such as privileging elite voices in archives’ appraisal policies, or quietly subversive acts such as centering indigenous epistemologies over colonial US references in archival description. While the archives profession has long espoused itself as a neutral force on the historical record, many scholars and practitioners, from Howard Zinn (1977) to Joan Schwarz and Terry Cook (2002) to Verne Harris (2007) to Anne Gilliland (2011) to Michelle Caswell (2015) to Jarrett Drake (2016) to Tonia Sutherland (2017), have made compelling arguments dispelling the myth of neutrality and challenging the inherent good of the information profession.As the world witnessed in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017 with the killing of social justice activist Heather Heyer by James Alex Fields Jr. at a white nationalist rally protesting the removal of a Confederate statue, lives are literally at stake as we negotiate whose narratives shape the historical record and public memory. While the full complexity of US-Cuba relations is beyond the scope of this article, I will offer a brief historical background to establish the complex political backdrop to our archival collaborations in Cuba. In order to maintain that economic control, the US supported political leaders who protected its economic interests, even if these leaders were repressive of the Cuban people, as was the case with the last US-backed leader, Fulgencio Batista, who was overthrown by Fidel Castro in 1959 (BBC 2018; Perez 1988). The US embargo intends, with few exceptions, to restrict and criminalize the movement of people and capital between the US and Cuba. belonging or pertaining to global south communities and return to the global north with digital copies of the records, perhaps leaving digital copies with the global south community but not the infrastructure to support preservation or access or the capacity to manage the digital files.

Objectives

Conclusion