Thread by @PoseySessions

Today I am reading "The Collective Memory: Archives and Libraries As Heritage" by Hugh A. Taylor.

archivaria.ca/index.php/arch…

"archives have generally been taken for granted as the information environment of traditional heritage, a collective memory to be ransacked by experts"

Over the past few months I have really thought a lot about the misconceptions of what archives are. They don't feel like they are for the use of the public and require special knowledge to navigate. Therefor it is worrisome to consider what a huge role they play in memory making.

The historian goes to the archive to get the information that they compile into a book. This book is seen as the truth. Often singular in truth no matter what the bias or intention of the historian.

Compare what exists in archives to what shows up in elementary history textbooks

It is interesting how the archive, rather than the historian, is held responsible for the shaping and keeping of the history. Which I don't think is inaccurate because the idea of curation is glossed over as the job of the institution, but in actuality is picking representation.

In comparison "For non-literate communities the past is constantly renewed and celebrated through the recreation of tribal myths and legends as part of a collective wisdom communicated in part by the shaman through which they learn abiding truths about themselves."

Rigid understandings about the past keep truth for oral communities from becoming stagnant. I think it is unfair to say that cultures with strong oral traditions are non-literate, but this becomes a very hard idea to discuss. How do you divide written history from oral history?

The division in & of itself creates a validation of one path and an invalidation of the other. Is there ways to understand these paradigms of truth & put them on equal footing? I am not sure what language to use because we interpret certain presentations of truth less important.

According to Piggott (2005, "Archives and Memory"), memory is built through a process of construction, framing, verification, and acceptance. It is in this way that archives and historians work together to create the reality of the past, which is now called memory or tradition.

Validation and replication of this process builds a cultural understanding of truth. It is now up to the archives to bring some transparency into this process and invite more individuals, perspectives, and voices to share in the experience of use and management of materials.

For those who have culture build on the roots of oral traditions "There is no linear sense of increasingly remote time, or historical development which has a way of fragmenting cultural experience in our own society until we have to ask whose experience and development for whom?"

Who does history belong to? How do we decide? In Western culture there is a phrase that both names & validates excluding marginalized voices from archives & historical records. “History is Written by Victors.”
This blog post that explores the phrase bit.ly/36ZmwQG

This blog post was found through a quick Google search but it presents history as this mutable thing. And it definitely is. History is not only held in institutions, but the existence of archives is defined by that purpose. In his post Jain fails to understand how archives...

... intentional shape presentations of history. The starting point is not unbiased. This acceptance of this phrase also implies that the victors might be the only ones who deserve to have a say in history. Conquest entitles archives to hold records that celebrate the victories.

Celebration of these victories requires the history to be a carefully constructed set of lies that makes conquest fell like destiny. Curation often selects the histories certain people, the documents of a certain perspective. Let alone only concerns itself with written records.

And then refuses to allow records to certain marginalized groups. Even when these records exist they aren't perceived as having the features that count for historical records.

These gaps leave misunderstandings, misrepresentations, and curiosities.

It creates an inability for the public to accurately understand certain cultures and also sometimes for these cultures to lack the context to understand themselves.

Certain cultures & perspectives get assigned to the past where they have no power and limited reasons for respect.

Oral traditions can be both sacred & important for memory. But also not universal. "Customary duties and rights are transmitted through oral tradition. The heritage of the tribe resides in the totality of its life and transmitted skills rooted in its land and natural resources."

Taylor talks about the tribe like it is a singular, universal entity. While indigenous groups and other marginalized & oppressed groups can have similarities, especially in their struggles, culture can vary widely. This makes it difficult to discuss. We want to standardize.

And now our curiosity has no boundary. We don't understand sacred things because we have so few sacred relationships. Settler culture is completely disconnected with the land and doesn't understand how to view anything other than through a lens profit and exploitation.

"Heritage lay not in the records themselves, but the transactions and customs to which they bore witness as 'evidences.'"

Does this become an over simplification of culture? That history can only be transactional? What about the aspects of culture that are not about exchange?

"The reluctance of mediaeval man to trust in literate documentation simply emphasizes a profound change in the source of the collective memory."

In fact, it makes sense to distrust the written word because it does not have to be held in the mind as accurately.

It can be edited, destroyed, recontextualized. More words on pages exist than any single human can hold in their head. And a constant growth in populations, documents, and time moving from present to past. How do we hold on to what is important? How do we know what is true?

And then we must ask in context curation and records management, "At what juncture then do records (meaning in the fullest sense of all that is imaged or textually written for public and private business) become part of a national or local heritage?"

Does heritage embody a multiplicity? Or is it only a single narrative?

What is the actual function of the archive? Choices are made about what to include and exclude and what those things say about heritage. Collection policies might be primarily focused on following a narrative

Heritage is "cultural 'goods' in every sense of the word, of its buildings and its art, its dance and its song, which may be readily experienced and transmitted, then documents, with no purpose beyond written communication...are in great danger of being regarded as worthless."

How do we capture these more ethereal aspects of heritage that lie beyond the boundaries of the written record? I have been thinking about how these items could be represented in an archive. Does it make sense for archives to expand beyond written records?

It is interesting to think of the written record as being a worthless form a cultural transmission because the opposite has been the standard for so long. Maybe it is too late now to think about how alternative records could be captured and stored.

"Nature itself became the ultimate artifact, the most stubborn and challenging of all to be mastered and contained by man. Classical humanism and the egocentric individualism that went with it sought to dominate and exploit men and materials...."

Exploit

Control and exploitation. It would be easy to imply that these structures are human nature, even though cultures that live in reciprocity with nature prove otherwise. Written proof as a way to understand the natural world also becomes an attempt to control it for personal benefit

Desire to master these understandings "drove men to conquer distance, space, and outer space in an orgy of natural exploitation that boggles the mind. History came to be written in terms of mastery, and archives quickly accorded priority to the records of elites...."

Therefore archives do not hold the records of history, but the records of the elites. Of the settlers. Of those working toward the singular destiny of the nation. Those that maintain the status quo. Those that endorse exploitation. Those that validate control over nature.

Understanding heritage is less about a holistic historical representation of region or nation, but of nostalgic throwback reclamation to the previous iteration of memory in western settler imagination. Returning to traditions of that past rooted in the same ideals as the present.

To go beyond that, to reach further back, to look at elements of history that do not confirm specific representations of identity, nation, power, & control lies beyond original understandings of heritage as a term & an action.

Boundaries of history reflect boundaries of empire.

Taylor writes, "Meanwhile, archives remained firmly in the hands of antiquaries, academics and scholarly administrators."

These items are representations of exploitation and opportunities for future exploitation. Archives hold documents that align with certain traditions.

Which when examined and studied produce works that confirm those same traditions.

Curation pretends to have a crystal ball to see information that will be important to the future, but archivists really only build collections based on what they see as important in the present.

Yet archives exist in this interesting duality. They are inaccessible relics yet are still foundational elements to the creation of history and memory.

"Documents remained remote from the people and the dusty old archivist continued to be the stereotype."

Records are held separately from the people & archivists are out of touch with the present. Archivist don't examine their exploitative role. Drake writes, "The purpose of the archival profession is to curate the past, not confront it; to entrench inequality, not eradicate it...."

medium.com/on-archivy/im-…

Drake's writing really got me focused on the fallacy of curation, which you have read criticism of throughout this thread.

Curation is the method through which history is edited. Archivists decide what is worth historical attention & what is not.

These choices are not unbiased. They have more to do with maintaining structures & perspectives, particularly of colonial ideas, than any kind of true representation of history.

These records continue to be the markers of conquest, exploitation, & control over the natural world.