Journal of Critical Library and Information Studies
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Useful Divides: Games of Truth in Library and Information Studies Research and Practice
Get PDFFor much of its history, the work of knowing the library has been said to be riven with divides—between academics and practitioners; between theory and practice; between thinking and doing. There is now a sizable literature in library and information studies that seeks to measure, diagnose, and mend these gaps. This paper interrogates this discourse of division in LIS research and practice. We explore its history, the uses to which it is put, by whom, and to what ends. Rather than seek to bridge the divide, we occupy it, as a space of friction, discomfort, and possibility. Drawing on a vast corpus of academic and industry texts that engage with the gap discourse, we approach these as “games of truth,” as systems of knowledge that produce and reinforce certain ways of being. Using this approach, we highlight how the divide sustains power relations between different groups and constitutes specific forms of knowledge (and not others) as useful and relevant. Seeking to challenge the underlying logic of the divide and its effects in the world, we approach these descriptors in a relational, rather than absolute, sense. Through this excavation, we invite a critical praxis that sees usefulness and relevance as not that which is inextricably aligned to instrumentalism, nor the domain of specific social groups. Rather, we suggest that adopting a critical praxis means reorienting use, using knowledge to advance a mode of living differently, of changing the shape of the world, and of asking what can be done in the face of inequality and indifference. With this in mind, we put forward an alternative mode of understanding use in LIS: as a collective resource that we draw upon to challenge inequalities, to understand and repair past wrongs and continued silences, and to challenge the role of libraries and other institutions in constructing and legitimizing broader power divides in society. These, we suggest, are gaps worth challenging.
Pre-print first published online 12/15/202
It Starts at Home: Infusing Radical Empathy into Graduate Education
Get PDFThis interview features a conversation between a library and information science educator (Cooke) and three archival and special collections professionals with varying levels of experience in the field (Warren, Brown, and Jackson). Among the goals of this frank conversation is to highlight the lived experiences of practicing archivists and educators and discuss why it’s becoming increasingly important to talk about empathy, diversity, equity, and inclusion in greater context. As part of that context, we must discuss the need to continuously infuse these values into graduate education, professional development, research, writing, and peer mentoring. Espousing and implementing an ethics of care is an ongoing and necessary process and commitment - to ourselves, to the professions, and to our communities.
Pre-print first published online 10/04/202
The Politics of Being an Archival Donor: Defining the Affective Relationship Between Archival Donors and Archivists
Get PDFTraditional archival praxis oftentimes depicts the archival donor as an observer and recipient of services or benefits. One that can either comply with the rules and expectations set forth by the archivist and archival institution when donating their materials or walk away from the process and opportunity. Despite the historic role of donor contributions in the form of archival donations, donors and their needs remain overlooked in much of the archival literature. Instead, current archival paradigms tend to focus more on the archival materials more so than the people behind them. But what if donors and archivists could reimagine their relationship and the ethical obligations associated with this bond?
This article applies Michelle Caswell and Marika Cifor’s archival theory of radical empathy combined with the theoretical framework of political consciousness as set forth by Black feminism. Using these frameworks, the research study uses a mixed method approach that includes a literature review of relationships in the archival field and a qualitative conventional content analysis of collected interview data from the donor case study of living music artist donors. As archivists seek to improve collection development and acquisition practices more attention must be placed on the care, affirmation, and wellbeing of the archival donor. Through collaboration with donors, archivists can strengthen archival practices by centering people and not just the things. By combining an ethics of care which introduces “a web of mutual affective responsibility” alongside the construction of a donor political consciousness, this article shows how donor participation contributes and strengthen archival practices that center people and not just things. The article and findings offer a distinct pathway to better understand the challenges, limitations, and possibilities of donor relationships and the benefits of donors recognizing the importance of active participation and understanding of their role in the archival process.
Pre-print first published online 02/26/202
Revisiting a Feminist Ethics of Care in Archives: An Introductory Note
Get PDFIn this featured commentary, Michelle Caswell and Marika Cifor revisit their article, “From Human Rights to Feminist Ethics: Radical Empathy in Archives”* and update its insights to reflect care work in our present time of crisis.
Pre-print first published online 06/11/2021
*Michelle Caswell and Marika Cifor, “From Human Rights to Feminist Ethics: Radical Empathy in Archives,” Archivaria 81 (Spring 2016): 23-43
Residential School Community Archives: Spaces of Trauma and Community Healing
Get PDFColonial archives are sites of trauma, erasure, and grief for many marginalized communities. In Canada the vast majority of archives relating to Indigenous peoples are held by government, church, and non-Indigenous archives. Colonial archives have actively taken Indigenous culture and heritage away from communities and made it inaccessible to those who the records are about. Many archives containing information relating to Residential Schools have just begun to grapple with the ethical and professional obligations that come from holding records that document colonial violence, abuse, death, and assimilationist practices. This article explores the practices of the Shingwauk Residential Schools Centre (SRSC) community archive and the ways in which the SRSC supports community healing and navigates traumatic archival records. Since its establishment the SRSC archives has been a place of raw emotion and grief, but also a place of tremendous community strength, healing, and resilience. This article will explore the trauma associated with archives of Residential Schools and the ongoing navigation of archival spaces which embody loss and community.
Pre-print first published online 09/28/202
Community-Driven Archives: Conocimiento, Healing, and Justice
Get PDFAccording to the Arizona Archives Matrix, the Latinx, Black, Asian and Pacific Islander, and Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) community currently make up over 42% of Arizona's population but are only represented in 0-2% of known archival collections. Arizona’s archives are dominated by white narratives that promote white supremacy, settler colonialism, and dehumanizes Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) living on this land for centuries. This article will share parts of my autoethnography as a Queer Latinx and archivist who is addressing this inequity and erasure by establishing the Community-Driven Archives (CDA) Initiative at Arizona State University with the support of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Since the project’s inception, I embraced a love ethic that uses Gloria Anzaldúa’s path to conocimiento as an epistemological framework for our CDA work. In their book This Bridge We Call Home: Radical Visions for Transformation, Anzaldúa and AnaLouise Keating reflect on how conocimiento, a Spanish word for consciousness and knowledge, can be used to decolonize the mind, body, and soul of marginalized communities. I believe BIPOC and Queer community archivists experience the seven stages of conocimiento as they learn how to preserve their archives, reclaim their narratives, and build a collective memory that heals historical trauma. The undeniable truth is that decolonizing is an act of deep transformative love, courage, and reflection. A predominantly white profession will never decolonize archives because the foundation of most traditional repositories is rooted in white power and systemic racism. In order to truly liberate archives from oppressive theory and practice, there needs to be a redistribution of power and resources which grants marginalized people the authority to lead community-driven archives.
Pre-print first published online 07/14/202
Tear Down This (Pay)Wall! Equality, Equity, Liberation for Archivists
Get PDFThis paper critically examines the practice of placing archival collections behind paywalls, starting with a microfilming decision that led to portions of collections stewarded by the author’s archives being offered for sale as part of large for-profit subject-based collections. The author uses economic and values-based arguments to illustrate how commodifying the archives by putting collections behind paywalls can be harmful for university libraries, archives, and the communities whose histories are hidden from them. The author then questions the existence of paywalled resources based on our professional associations’ codes of ethics. The author offers a tool from the field of service-learning that might be used to evaluate how archives can interact ethically with communities, and uses a radical empathy lens to illustrate how various digital initiatives have wrestled with the ethics of paywalled resources and the marginalized communities they originate from. Finally, the author describes efforts to critically examine and disrupt current practices using a radical empathy framing, and offers practical solutions for archival institutions to take the first step toward a liberatory digital archive available to all.
Pre-print first published online 04/14/202
Archiving Black Movements: Shifting Power and Exploring a Community-Centered Approach
Get PDFWith the move towards both critical information literacy and community-centered archives, cultural heritage and information professionals have been called to further interrogate our role as collectors and catalogers of materials. We know that the preservation and description of objects, records, and ephemera ascribe historical meaning, are culturally bound, and impact understanding beyond our lifetime. In this heightened time of social injustice, Black librarians, archivists, and curators are collaborating with community and organizing groups to select and preserve materials related to uprisings in real-time. However, there is a disconnect from the records and items selected for the archives and materials valued by the organizers themselves. There is also a lack of published texts centering the approaches and materials of Black people organizing for their own communities as a part of the archival record with few exceptions. Knowing there is power in the archives, there must be careful consideration to the prioritization and representation of Black communities in their own words.
In the following conversations, we thought critically about the provenance and authority of records found on the internet and how archivists should consider materials created by organizers and those created by the community at large. We facilitated three interviews with activists and organizers whose work focuses on the liberation of Black lives globally to both frame and interrogate current archival practices. These interviews explored our archival approach, specifically centering the narratives of the people on the ground. Through these conversations, we discussed the state of organizing and creating digital content as well as how cultural heritage professionals should prioritize the histories of various movements for Black life globally. The interviewees included activists and organizers from the Illinois Chapter of the Black Panther Party (1968-1970s), Black Nashville Assembly, and formerly of Black Lives Matter (2013-present), and End SARS (Special Anti-Robbery Squad) movement (2020-present) in Nigeria.
In shaping this conversation, we considered these key questions: What objects speak to your “work”? What content do you think will help future generations understand past and present movements around Black life? How can cultural heritage professionals determine what is created by BLM, BPP, etc. versus what is contributed by the community-at-large? What does Black liberation look like to you?
This article outlines and reimagines archival work as community-based, highly collaborative, and iterative for professionals outside of Black social and political movements. With a focus on intentionality around the communities impacted, individuals involved, and the movements at large, we framed what archival materials are important to Black organizers of our time. With their insight, cultural heritage and archival professionals can create deliberate processes to get direct feedback from the creators themselves for the archives. Overall, this article aims to introduce ways of thinking to decentralize power in archival collections and provide agency to organizers through their own historical record.
Pre-print first published online 8/5/202
Dear Sister Artist: Activating Feminist Art Letters and Ephemera in the Archive
Get PDFThe 1970s Feminist Art movement continues to serve as fertile ground for contemporary feminist inquiry, knowledge sharing, and art practice. The CalArts Feminist Art Program (1971–1975) played an influential role in this movement and today, traces of the Feminist Art Program reside in the CalArts Institute Archives’ Feminist Art Materials Collection. Through a series of short interrelated archives stories, this paper explores some of the ways in which women responded to and engaged the Collection, especially a series of letters, for feminist projects at CalArts and the Women’s Art Library at Goldsmiths, University of London over the period of one year (2017–2018). The paper contemplates the archive as a conduit and locus for current day feminist identifications, meaning-making, exchange, and resistance and argues that activating and sharing—caring for—the archive’s feminist art histories is a crucial thing to be done: it is feminism-in-action that not only keeps this work on the table but it can also give strength and definition to being a feminist and an artist.
Pre-print first published online 12/05/202
Balancing Care and Authenticity in Digital Collections: A Radical Empathy Approach To Working With Disk Images
Get PDFBoth traditional recordkeeping and radical empathy frameworks ask us to carefully consider: the presence of sensitive information within digital content; those who created, are captured by, and are affected by a record (or the absence of that record); and the consequences of retaining or discarding that information. However, automated digital archiving workflows – in order to handle the scale and volume of digital content – discourage contextual and empathetic decision-making in favour of preselected decisions.
This paper explores the implications on labor and privacy of the common practice to “take and keep it all” within the context of radical empathy. Practices which promote retention of complete disk images and encourage the creation of access copies with redacted sensitive data are vulnerable. The decision to discard must be deliberate and, often, must be enacted manually, outside of the workflow.
The motivation for this model is that the researcher, archivist, curator, or librarian can always return to the original disk image in order to demonstrate authenticity, allow for emulation or access, or to generate new access copies. However, this practice poses ethical privacy concerns and does not demonstrate care. We recognize that the resources necessary to review disk images and make contextual decisions that balance both privacy and authenticity are sizable due to the manual nature of this work: this places strain and further labor on staff and practitioners using current digital archival and preservation tools. We proffer that there is a need to develop tools which aid in efficient and explicit redaction, but also allow for needed contextual and empathetic decision-making. Further we propose that more staff time is required to make these decisions and if that staff time is not available, then the institution should consider itself incapable of ethically stewarding the content and protecting those affected.
Pre-print first published online 01/24/202