Abstract

This workshop builds on the principles and protocols proposed in the collaboratively authored white paper, “‘Come Correct or Don’t Come at All’: Building More Equitable Relationships Between Archival Studies Scholars and Community Archives.” The white paper, collaboratively authored between community archivists and archival studies scholars, reported on a May 2021 two-day online workshop about the current state of academic research on community archives, its impact on communities represented and served by such organizations, and ways to envision and enact more equitable relationships moving forward.

The paper presented collaboratively-derived principles and protocols for building ethical, more equitable partnerships between academic researchers and community-based archivists representing and serving minoritized communities. Our findings surfaced several damaging tendencies in academic research, including: parachuting in, knowledge extraction, financial inequity, and transactional consent. We then identified nine key principles for building mutually beneficial relationships between academic researchers and community archivists: relational consent; mutual benefit; investment; humility; accountability; transparency; equity; reparation; and amplification. In conclusion, we proposed ways academic researchers can enact these principles via protocols for building more equitable research partnerships moving forward.

In this workshop, we will discuss these findings with archival studies scholars, and enable them to present real-world cases from their own research. Workshop participants will be encouraged to read the white paper prior to attending and to consider the relevance of the principles and protocols to their practices.  We will begin the workshop with a short introduction to the white paper (5-10 minutes) and then engage in a group brainstorming session to map principles and protocols to participants’ experiences of working with and/or in communities and to generate sets of questions to consider in more detail together, through group discussion and/or breakout groups (depending on the size of the session). The session will also include time to identify and discuss any additional principles and protocols not covered in the white paper.  Participants will leave with a plan for more equitably working with and for communities.

Presenter Bios

Michelle Caswell, University of California, Los Angeles

June Chow, University of British Columbia

Jennifer Douglas, University of British Columbia

Kathryn (Kat) Rodriguez, Indigenous Alliance without Borders/ Alianza Indigena Sin Fronteras

Details

To confirm the date/time of this session in your timezone please use the following link: https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?msg=Workshop%3A+Building+More+Equitable+Relationships+Between+Archival+Studies+Scholars+and+Community+Arch&iso=20220713T17&p1=1440&ah=1

Zoom details

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

Accessibility details

• AI captioning

Recording

This session will be live-only.