Content and use of colonial archives: an under-researched issue

Namibians often find themselves in situations of litigation where they need person-related records to defend their rights and privileges. Such person-related records include birth, adoption, marriage, or divorce or deceased estates. It has been observed that the institution where such records should be expected, the National Archives of Namibia often cannot retrieve person-related records of persons previously classified as non-whites under colonial and apartheid laws. Many native Namibians end up losing property or have problems claiming their constitutional rights due to lack of evidence. The purpose of this paper was to explore whether the existing archival literature can guide National Archives of new and emerging African nations on how to handle challenges brought about by gaps in inherited colonial archives. Using a literature survey to explore the state of what is written on the content and usage of colonial archives in post-colonial era, this article argues that the content and use of colonial archives in Africa do not feature prominently in the literature of archival science. Although there has been a rising interest on the subject during the last decade, none of this emerging literature has systematically studied archives in depth with a view on what these archives contain for the non-academic user, what they neglect and what they lack altogether in serving the needs of all citizens in post-colonial states. It recommends that archival scholars as well as archival institutions increase research into this neglected area. Raising awareness may produce academic discourse to help archivists in newly decolonised countries to competently support users whose inquiries currently cannot be answered by the inherited colonial archives collections.     

Culture and evidence: or what good are the archives? Archives and archivists in twentieth century England

Archives have the potential to change people’s lives. They are created to enable the conduct of business and accountability, but they also support a democratic society’s expectations for transparency and the protection of rights, they underpin citizen’s rights and are the raw material of our history and memory. This paper examines these issues in the context of the historical development of archives and archivists in twentieth century England. The research lays the foundations for understanding how and why the modern archives and records management profession developed in England. This paper will investigate the historical conflict (or is it a continuum?) between archives as culture and as evidence. The story identifies and highlights the contributions made by many fascinating individuals who established archives services and professional practice in England in the twentieth century. They shaped the archive in a very real way, and their individual enthusiasms, interests and understandings set the course of the English archival profession. To a great extent, it was these individuals, rather than government or legislation, that set the boundaries of English archives, they decided what was included (acquired) and what was not (of archival value.) The conclusion will consider the more fundamental questions: what are archives and what are they for, or perhaps, ‘what good are the archives’?     

司法视角下的档案保管期限表设置思路研究

档案保管期限表是指导档案价值鉴定工作的标准性文件。笔者通过实地调研和问卷调查发现,由于档案保管期限表的司法地位较弱,档案工作人员受潜在心理负担影响,使得在实际工作中未能完全地依照档案保管期限表开展实践工作。基于上述现状,本文从档案处置权、司法追诉期和司法凭证性三方面研究了司法视角下的档案保管期限表的设置思路,认为：（1）应赋予档案保管期限表相应的法律地位,以减轻相关档案工作人员的心理负担;（2）在保管期限的设置与档案销毁方面,应参考司法追诉期,既不能让还在发挥凭证作用的档案被销毁,也不要无限期地保存所有档案;（3）应从司法角度审视档案的有机联系性,尽最大可能保证档案的完整性与凭证性。     

The archival sliver: Power, memory, and archives in South Africa

Far from being a simple reflection of reality, archives are constructed windows into personal and collective processes. They at once express and are instruments of prevailing relations of power. Verne Harris makes these arguments through an account of archives and archivists in the context of South Africa's transition from apartheid to democracy. The account is deliberately shaped around three themes — race, power, and public records. While he concedes that the constructedness of memory and the dimension of power are most obvious in the extreme circumstances of oppression and rapid transition to democracy, he argues that these are realities informing archives in all circumstances. He makes an appeal to archivists to enchant their work by engaging these realities and by turning always towards the call of and for justice. This essay draws heavily on four articles published previously by me: “Towards a Culture of Transparency: Public Rights of Access to Official Records in South Africa”,American Archivist 57.4 (1994); “Redefining Archives in South Africa: Public Archives and Society in Transition, 1990–1996”,Archivaria 42 (1996); “Transforming Discourse and Legislation: A Perspective on South Africa's New National Archives Act”,ACARM Newsletter 18 (1996); and “Claiming Less, Delivering More: A Critique of Positivist Formulations on Archives in South Africa”,Archivaria 44 (1997). I am grateful to Ethel Kriger (National Archives of South Africa) and Tim Nuttall (University of Natal) for offering sometimes tough comment on an early draft of the essay. I remain, of course, fully responsible for the final text. I presented a version of it in the “Refiguring the Archive” seminar series, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, October 1998. That version was published in revised form in Carolyn Hamilton et al.,Refiguring the Archive (Cape Town: David Philip, 2002).     

Training for the archival profession in Namibia

A discussion of the archival profession in Namibia cannot be done in isolation from the records management profession. This paper discusses training for the records and archives management professions in Namibia and the extent to which it is meeting the needs of the job market. The National Archives of Namibia, as the largest employer of archivists, and the institution charged with the responsibility of providing a records management service to Government, is mostly referred to, but where appropriate, references to other institutions are made. It outlines the factors which have shaped the current formal training in records and archives management being offered. Some suggestions as to how the job market can be satisfied are provided.     

Reference Services for Electronic Records in Archives

Abstract

The Center for Electronic Records of the National Archives is the unit of the National Archives and Records Administration responsible for the appraisal, accessioning, preservation, and provision of access to the permanently valuable electronic records of the Federal government. Recent changes in technology, especially the development of global networks of computers, have changed the way some archivists view the role of archives, especially for electronic records. From a reference services perspective, there is a continuing rqle for electronic records archives.     

档案工作者职业权力的合法性审视

中立客观的档案工作者角色认知、自上而下的制度建设、从无到有的社会服务,建立了档案工作者职业权力的合法性。档案工作者角色认知的转变、相关制度的不完善、实效的不足等导致了档案职业权力的合法性危机。提高档案工作透明度,优化制度生态、提高档案的社会服务实效,以重构档案工作者职业权力的合法性。     

The historian activist and the Gift to the Nation project: preserving the records of the Australian Red Cross

ABSTRACT

In 2014, as part of their centenary celebrations, the Australian Red Cross initiated a project in which it transferred archives to various national, state and territory institutions across Australia including the University of Melbourne Archives and the State Library of New South Wales. The transfer of this voluminous (but not complete) collection built on earlier transfers of archives to the State Library of South Australia and the Australian War Memorial. This paper charts the origins of the plan to donate the records to public repositories. It interrogates the societal provenance of those collections, recognising that the pluralising of records is an historical process, in which the agency of archivists, historians and administrators must be understood. An investigation of Red Cross records in Australia exposes that process in its contingency, inertia and, ultimately, enthusiasm. The paper also reveals the challenges faced by voluntary organisations in preserving their records, and how historians and archivists both can benefit from assisting such organisations. Finally, this paper argues that the ‘Gift to the Nation’ project, with its national and international significance, reflects a shift in our understanding of the First World War to a transnational paradigm that recognises the important role of voluntary organisations.     

People,records and power: what archives can learn from WikiLeaks 1

The 2012 International Council on Archives congress theme of ‘Trust. Archives Supporting Good Governance and Accountability’ invited exploration of the nexus between recordkeeping and holding powerful people and organisations to account. By comparing the formation, management and use of a set of records under currently accepted frameworks for recordkeeping in Australia with the formation, management and use of the WikiLeaks Cablegate archive, we can examine how effectively archives and recordkeeping professionals today are meeting their stated goal of upholding accountability, while ensuring the creation of an inclusive societal memory. By analysing these two cases from the point of view of recordkeeping activities supporting appraisal, access, use, trust and authenticity, it is then possible to draw conclusions about lessons that recordkeepers should be learning from WikiLeaks and the changing nature of information generally, if we are to remain relevant and useful as a profession.     

Oral culture, written records and understanding the twentieth-century colonial archive. The significance of understanding from within

The educational institutions that train archivists and records managers in Europe and North America have not engaged with the challenges of orality until very recently. As their counterparts in Africa are modelled on the earlier version of European and North American practice, they do not address the relationship between oral cultures and written records either. This article attempts to address this significant omission. It is grounded on evidence gathered during a fellowship at Chancellor College in Malawi and arises from the author??s work in preparing courses on archives and records management for a planned postgraduate degree. The methodological limitations imposed by the author??s lack of the appropriate African language skills are acknowledged. It is observed that the colonial archive has been subjected to vociferous criticism and that oral history programs have been advocated to fill perceived gaps. Yet, paradoxically the colonial archive is itself largely the product of a process of turning oral communications into written records. The nature of the processes and of the products is discussed. It is argued that these archives, like all archives, need to be interpreted as products of their historical and cultural setting. If users can read them ??with the grain??, then they may be able to utilise them for a range of purposes never envisaged by the creators of the records.     

Is the archivist a “radical atheist” now? Deconstruction,its <Emphasis Type="Italic">new wave</Emphasis>, and archival activism

Hägglund’s “radical atheism”—innovative thinking within the philosophical current of “speculative materialism”—revitalizes deconstruction and provides an important basis to define parameters for the archivist’s role as activist for social justice. This paper argues postmodern archival theory gets deconstruction wrong by misreading Derrida’s “Archive fever” as a theory of “archontic power”; this misleads archivists on the call for justice. Properly understanding that justice is undecidable, radical atheism explodes the tension between postmodernists’ appreciation of all views and perspectives and their commitment to right unjust relations of power. This paper first advances the negative argument that “Archive fever” is not about power and injustice. It then advances the positive argument that “Archive fever” is Derrida’s effort to look at actual archives to resolve Freud’s problematic theorizing of a “death drive.” In a close and comprehensive reading of “Archive fever,” this paper explores the notion of “archive fever” as a death drive and suggests Derrida’s efforts are inconclusive. Viewed through the lens of radical atheism, the archive’s “traces”—the material of actual archives writ large in the manner of Derrida’s thinking about a universal archive—serve to mark the flow of time. Understanding the structure of the trace reveals the source of internal contradictions, discontinuities, and instabilities in the meaning of all things. It explains why justice is undecidable. In face of the unconditional condition of this undecidability, we as archivists and humans are compelled to make decisions and to act. Deconstruction politicizes our actions and evokes a responsibility that cannot be absolved.     

Archives of the new possession: Spanish colonial records and the American creation of a ‘national’ archives for the Philippines

Through the Treaty of Paris in 1898, Spain ceded to the United States all its colonial authority over the Philippines, including its other colonies. The Treaty also placed in American possession the Spanish records kept in the various agencies of the former colonial administration of the islands. Upon assumption of its role as the new de facto colonial regime, the American insular government initiated the process of collecting the Spanish colonial records to be housed in a central repository that became the nucleus of the National Archives of the Philippines. An important aspect of understanding the context of archives in post-colonial Philippines is to trace its early beginnings and to examine the archives’ association with former colonial powers. Established against the backdrop of the shift in the continuum of colonial regimes, the archive is undeniably a colonial creation and a manifestation of colonial domination. For the contemporary imagination, however, its very presence represents a common and collective past that consequently contributes to the formation of a “national consciousness” and ironically reinforces the idea of nationhood of the formerly colonized territory.     

中国参与全球档案治理:历程、挑战与策略

中国参与全球档案治理,既是中国参与全球治理的需要,也是建设档案强国的需要。中国加入以国际档案理事会为核心的全球档案治理体系,历经若干发展时期,目前正迎来新的时代机遇。但是,中国在全球档案治理方面也存在浅层参与活动较多、深层决策行为较少,引进学习的理论多,对外传播的思想少,交流对象单一、缺乏对多元档案文化的吸纳,缺乏深谙专业、外语和国际规则的复合型人才等问题。为此,我国档案行政管理部门应制定参与全球档案治理政策,档案研究机构应积极参与国际档案标准制定,档案实践部门应主动加入国际档案合作项目,档案工作者应努力提升参与全球治理的能力。     

真的假的:档案真伪鉴辨论

档案真伪的鉴辨,关键在于对档案来源的甄别,同时要根据档案的其他原始要素确定档案的“形制过程”的真实,任何误判和管理失误,都可能造成档案之“伪”.档案是我们真实的历史脚印,也许并不都很光彩,但却是历史事实.档案工作者的责任就是维护历史的真实.     

Appraising email (using digital forensics): techniques and challenges

With the growth of digital records, particularly email, archives must adapt their methods of acquiring, appraising and providing access to records. As one possible solution, the Provincial Archives of New Brunswick advocates the use of digital forensics. This article moves beyond simply advocating a technical solution, however, to include a fuller understanding of the challenges archivists may encounter when appraising email, such as the discovery of personal information, personally identifiable information and other information that is not reflected in traditional correspondence.     

Archives, Memory, and Interfaces with the Past

Archival interfaces are criticalnodes in archival systems where archivistsnegotiate and exercise power over theconstitution and representation of archives. Drawing on notions of interfaces from physical,technological, and computer systems, archivalinterfaces are both a metaphor for archivists'roles as intermediaries between documentaryevidence and its readers and a tangible set ofstructures and tools that place archivaldocuments in a context and provide aninterpretative framework. Interfaces in moderninstitutions and technological systems areneither natural nor neutral. In probingarchival interfaces, what may appear as neutraland objective processes are revealed as placeswhere archivists determine what constituteslegitimate evidence of the past and shapesocial memories. The emergence of computerinterfaces as an increasingly common mode ofuser interaction with archives demands thatarchivists confront the interpretative natureof their work and exploit opportunities toplace themselves visibly in the interfaces theyconstruct.