New Considerations

At times, in these readings, I am frustrated. Ann Stoler brings up relevant and vital issues about colonial archives: provenance. Colonialism permanently changes a place and archives reflect that, and there is important work being done to go back and think about how we know what we know. We need to not just question the content of the archive, but to also question how the archive was constructed. We do this to get closer to some “truth” of the place/time/event. After reading the issues she brings up, I am frustrated by how limited the archive can be. It is part of a picture, not the whole picture. Just like our narratives of history. It’s left up to us on what to do with the issues.

In the article by Jarrett Drake, he talks about the history of provenance and how, historically, archives became different from libraries, which I found very helpful! It aided my understanding in the potential of the archive and the limits of it at the same time. Aside from the more sinister parts of colonialism in the archive (people’s experiences it leaves out at best, and aiding the ugliness of the continued rule of the white patriarchy at worst) seems to be a kind of organizational tool. Drake asks how we organize the digital archive at a time when we can expand whose voices are included in it.

One Reply

  • Thanks, Kristin! I’m glad to hear about your frustration, I’s a *productive* frustration!: it forces us to ask questions about the archive’s politics and limitations — but is also forces us to consider what we can do to atone for those limitations and right its wrongs. We thus transform that frustration into reparation. Yet Alyssa, in her post for this week, wonders if our acts of amendment ultimately end up raising ever-more sticky questions, highlighting new biases. I hope we can discuss this today!

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