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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...

Abstract1. Through an exchange between members of community-based organizations that document human rights violations in northwest Colombia and northern Uganda

This paper reviews important aspects of the literature on collective memory, how some of these concerns have been expressed in archives, and contemplates how these issues relate to the politically transformative South African post-apartheid context. It highlights the erosion of boundaries between archives, museums, and other less-institutionalized memory projects in post-apartheid South Africa. It notes ways in which archival activity is taking place outside of traditional archives, as part...

On 22 April 2008, five years after the American invasion of Iraq, the Society of American Archivists (SAA) and the Association of Canadian Archivists (ACA) issued a joint statement calling for American authorities to repatriate millions of captured intelligence documents and intervene with the “government of Kurdistan” to return the Iraqi Anfal files to the Iraq National Library and Archive in Baghdad. The Anfal files, which chronicle Iraq’s genocide against the Kurds during the mid- to...

(2010) Barrera. Archival Science. Abstract The paper discusses some archival issues that emerged during a judicial investigation carried out by the Prosecutor’s Office\nof Rome (Italy) regarding h...

For better or for worse, heritage is a key terrain on which societal conflicts are expressed. Instead of treating conflict over heritage sites defensively, shielding them from attack, we can take proactive steps to offer heritage sites as resources for addressing contested social questions. This article explores strategies used around the world by ‘Sites of Conscience’– heritage sites that foster dialogue on contemporary issues – to help communities to confront the questions that divide them.

This paper examines the implications of the context of creation on the current and potential future uses of the records produced by the Comissao de Acolhimento, Verdade e Reconciliacao de Timor-Leste (Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation, or CAVR). Given that the CAVR relied heavily on the testimony of the East Timorese people in its investigations that addressed a 25-year period, this paper considers the nature of memory and the role it played in creating and shaping the CAVR...

This paper aims to explore initiatives in dealing with the past in South East Europe, particularly with regard to archives, and to reflect on discussions about the documentation of atrocities and sufferings and the shift from war to peace, ongoing in the Balkan countries affected by the 1991–1999 wars while the countries are still struggling to find the best way(s) to deal with the past and its consequences. Transitional justice may be framed as opening up different approaches to create...

The article presents the various points of view regarding the definitions and uses of records and archives amongst the recordkeeping scholarly and practitioner communities. It demonstrates that whereas records and archives are useful tools for facilitating transparency, accountability and good governance in society, they could be used as instruments of repression and human rights abuses. Attempts made by various regimes to destroy evidence documented in records to conceal actions related to...

Informit is an online service offering a wide range of database and full content publication products that deliver the vast majority of Australasian scholarly research to the education, research and business sectors. Informit encompasses online products: Informit Indexes, Informit Plus Text and Informit Collections.

This article contains a survey of ethical codes adopted by the Archives and Records Management (ARM) professional associations in Anglophone areas in the 1990s and notes that such codes are in effect standards to set beside other standards. The Museums Association code of ethics is compared, because it is aimed at institutions and not at individual professionals. It can be observed that institutional aims contain a strong ethical component. This is backed by procedural standards and...

The first part of this paper deals with truth, justice, memory and the role of archives. The record speaks with multiple voices through many intermediaries. Those intermediaries are the subject of the second part of the paper addressing the issue of connecting people's stories with public archives, using technologies for social navigation and ubiquitous computing which can transform archives into social spaces of memory.

This lecture by Justice Albie Sachs of the South African Constitutional Court recounts his “archive fever.” Archivaria asked Verne Harris of the Nelson Mandela Foundation to prepare a short introduction. RÉSUMÉCet exposé du juge Albie Sachs de la Cour constitutionnelle de l’Afrique du Sud (South African Constitutional Court) évoque sa « fièvre des archives ». Archivaria a demandé à Verne Harris de la Fondation Nelson Mandela de préparer une brève introduction.