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The role of testimony and documentation is crucial to human rights work in transitional contexts. Such evidence is vital in societies seeking to deal with a pas

This article proposes a new definition of social justice that is based in liberation theology. It questions the relationship between archival practice and social justice and asks how (and whether) social justice can (or should be) a transformative force in the archival profession. These theoretical questions are examined through a case study of human rights archives. The author travelled to Chile in December 2011 to interview archivists and human rights activists and visit human rights...

There are dedicated efforts around the world to steward material related to human atrocities, with aspirations to acknowledge, learn from, and perhaps lessen the probability of further harm. Yet for the archivists charged with stewarding these collections, there remain ethically fraught questions of how to do this work. Through this article, we identify systemic, structural challenges that confront efforts to ethically steward collections of trauma. Our scholarly reflections are grounded in...

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to investigate the cases of “delayed and denied” justice that resulted from a lack of or poor record-keeping in the South African courts and police service with a view to encouraging proper records management. Proper records management plays a significant role in supporting the justice system. Records provide the critical evidence that a particular action or transaction took place and can be used as evidence in a court of law. Without reliable and...

In this paper, based on conventional and digital ethnography, I first identify three dominant research areas relating to the issues of destruction, use and abuse of archives and records in post-war Bosnia, and discuss their legal, political and ethical dimensions. I then go on to present two ethnographies describing how survivors of ‘ethnic cleansing’ and genocide in Bosnia and in the Bosnian refugee diaspora perceive, experience and deal with missing personal records and material evidence...

There are strong dominant discourses across the intersecting spacings of transitional justice, ‘human rights archives’, and reckoning with the past. The power of these discourses can close down non-orthodox perspectives and fresh lines of enquiry. The dual goals of the paper are to identify such lines of enquiry and tease out loose threads in the dominant discourses. The result is a provocation ranging from the experiences of the Nelson Mandela Foundation to the work of deconstruction, from...

How do distinctive historical experiences and political regimes shape human rights archives? How do those archives and those experiences in turn influence the way painful pasts are remembered or forgotten? And what can historical accounts tell us about the wisdom of prevailing norms and practices regarding the management and control of human rights records? This paper explores these questions through a close analysis of the history and politics of the principal archive documenting human...

Can archives help heal and extend the benefit of therapeutic interventions in a post-genocide environment? We sought to probe this question through an uncommon collaborative documentation and research project linking psychology and archival science: Stories for Hope–Rwanda (SFH). This intergenerational dialogue project between youth and elder pairs in post-genocide Rwanda draws upon a collective narrative model from psychology and both community and participatory models from archives. The...

This article seeks to raise consciousness within the field of archival studies in order to foster a generative discussion about how descriptive practices might be expanded, approached differently, or completely rethought. It brings together crosscutting theoretical issues and provides practical examples of mediation in order to mobilize these records in support of human rights work. It first problematizes the foundational archival precept of respect des fonds and its sub-principles of...

Records professionals play an important role in increasing the likelihood that business records will be admitted as evidence. This article discusses the business records exception to the hearsay rule and the ways in which business records may be tendered as evidence in Canada. By reviewing Canadian case law, the author examines several criteria that could contribute to a judge’s decision to admit a business record as evidence and identifies ways that records professionals can help their...

This essay argues that archival paradigms over the past 150 years have gone through four phases: from juridical legacy to cultural memory to societal engagement to community archiving. The archivist has been transformed, accordingly, from passive curator to active appraiser to societal mediator to community facilitator. The focus of archival thinking has moved from evidence to memory to identity and community, as the broader intellectual currents have changed from pre-modern to modern to...

The concept of “collective” or “social” memory has assumed increasing prominence in the discourse of archivists over the past few decades. Archives are frequently characterized as crucial institutions of social memory, and many professional activities are considered forms of memory preservation. We present a systematic examination of the relationships between archives and collective memory as articulated in the English-language archival literature. We first identify the major themes...

People from different weak groups struggling for justice may be dependent on archive material to document and substantiate their claims. In this paper I discuss the question of to what extent we as archivists are aware of our role as rulers of the archives. As an example, I use the Norwegian war children and the importance of information from the archives of the Norwegian National Archives for them both individually and as a group in society. I also discuss how we as Civil Servants and...

Almost a decade following the 2003 American invasion of Iraq, most Iraqi state documents stemming from Saddam Hussein's regime remain in the possession of the United States. U.S. military forces seized the majority of them in the invasion and occupation for intelligence exploitation, approximately a hundred pages of records and thousands of audio- and videotapes from Hussein's various bureaucracies of repression. Another 5.5 million pages of secret police files chronicling Hussein's Anfal...

This paper examines four economic and political themes that are relevant to international heritage preservation and archives efforts. Collaborations that involve multiple players such as industrialized nations, international heritage organizations, and postcolonial or economically developing regions will inevitably be laden with sociopolitical and economic entanglements that affect preservation outcomes and modern cultural development. Drawing on the Timbuktu Manuscripts Project in Mali for...

The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples is the preeminent international instrument elaborating on the rights of Indigenous peoples. It contains the minimum standards for the survival, dignity and well-being of Indigenous peoples all over the world. As a consequence, the Declaration provides a blueprint for Indigenous peoples, governments and other third parties around the world to respect the rights and roles of Indigenous peoples within society. At its core, the...

The phrase “peace, order and good government,” common to the definition of federal powers in both the Australian and the Canadian constitutions, has defined the relationship of the Crown and the citizen for more than five centuries. The archival record is fundamental to that relationship, providing its authoritative legal basis, documenting its evolution and continuing as a reminder of both our proudest achievements and our most dismal failures as a society. This paper reflects on the role...

This article highlights the extent to which international law has changed rapidly in recent years in relation to the rights of Indigenous peoples generally, and in particular how this impacts upon the legal status of traditional knowledge and culture. It reviews the recognition of the unique legal status of Māori in Aotearoa and Aboriginal peoples in Canada in relation to selfdetermination and how their changing place within these nations are affecting the operations of museums, libraries...

This paper deals with issues of power and silencing of the “Other” within colonial archives, particularly regarding British East India Company records of an attempted mutiny of Bengali sepoys and Javanese aristocrats in 1815, now housed in the India Office Records of the British Library. It recommends incorporating a postcolonial approach and reading records against the grain in order to recover these marginalized voices. The body of this paper is broken into three sections. The first...