Transformative justice: transdisciplinary collaborations for archival autonomy
- Authors: Evans, Joanne , Wilson, Jacqueline , Lewis, Antonina , McGinniss, David , Altham, Siobhan
- Date: 2021
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Archives and Records Vol. 42, no. 1 (2021), p. 3-24
- Full Text: false
- Reviewed:
- Description: Worldwide inquiries into childhood institutionalization repeatedly document systemic and enduring problems with fractured and fragmented recordkeeping and archiving systems that put the protection of organizations and institutions ahead of the safety and wellbeing of those in their care. As importantly, they demonstrate how much recordkeeping matters in people’s lives and the role that records play in developing and nurturing identity, connection to family, community, and culture, and as instruments of accountability, restitution, and redress. They highlight the transdisciplinarity inherent in recordkeeping endeavours, and for research and praxis in child welfare and protection to transcend disciplinary, professional, and community boundaries to ensure that systems created to protect children from neglect and abuse do not themselves cause harm. In this article we explore the transformative justice approach of the Archives and the Rights of the Child Research Programme, that, through transdisciplinary collaborations investigating rights-based recordkeeping, aims to advance archival autonomy, the ability of individuals and communities to participate in organizational and societal evidence and memory structures with their own voice. This broad re-imagining of recordkeeping is vital if we are to escape endless cycles of ambiguous and disappointing transitional justice outcomes, through recognizing voice and agency in recordkeeping as a human right. © 2020 Archives and Records Association. **Please note that there are multiple authors for this article therefore only the name of the first 5 including Federation University Australia affiliate “Jacqueline Wilson, David McGinniss, Siobhan Altham" is provided in this record**
Decolonizing recordkeeping and archival praxis in childhood out-of-home care and indigenous archival collections
- Authors: McKemmish, Sue , Bone, Jane , Evans, Joanne , Golding, Frank , Lewis, Antonia , Rolan, Gregory , Thorpe, Kirsten , Wilson, Jacqueline
- Date: 2020
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Archival Science Vol. 20, no. 1 (Mar 2020), p. 21-49
- Full Text: false
- Reviewed:
- Description: This paper presents the aims and findings of two research projects-Rights in Records by Design and Indigenous Archiving and Cultural Safety-making particular reference to the ways in which Australia's current child welfare systems and their recordkeeping and archival praxis have been indelibly shaped by colonization and its legacies, which persist into the twenty-first century. We posit that the classist, heteropatriarchal, sexist and racist colonial constructs of child welfare, the neglected and criminal child, and Indigeneity persist to this day and continue to be embodied in the form and content of records and archives, as well as in the principles and values embedded in recordkeeping and archival systems. The paper begins with discussion of framing concepts drawn from records continuum theory and critical theory, followed by an overview of both projects. We then explore in-depth findings of the Rights Charter, Historical Justice, and Educational components of Rights in Records by Design and Indigenous Archiving and Cultural Safety with particular attention to colonial values and negative constructs of childhood and Indigeneity, respectively, and their impacts from colonial times to the present. Importantly, we discuss the intersection of constructs of childhood and Indigeneity with colonial values and constructs embedded in recordkeeping and archiving systems. We note that the primary purpose of recordkeeping in colonial times was to provide critical infrastructure that enabled imperial control and exploitation. Consequently, we point to the need for childhood recordkeeping and archiving itself to be decolonized, to embody constructs of the child as having agency and rights, and, in turn, to play its part in decolonizing childhood. Finally, we discuss the contributions that each project is making to decolonizing recordkeeping and archiving theory and practice, and the potential for decolonized recordkeeping and archiving to play their part in decolonizing childhood for children in out-of-home Care and Indigenous Australian children caught up in the Indigenous child welfare system, respectively.
“All i want to know is who I am” : archival justice for Australian care leavers
- Authors: Evans, Joanne , Golding, Frank , O’Neill, Cate , Tropea, Rachel
- Date: 2020
- Type: Text , Book chapter
- Relation: Archives, Recordkeeping and Social Justice p. 105-126
- Full Text:
- Reviewed:
- Description: Joanne Evans, Frank Golding, Cate O’Neill, and Rachel Tropea recount Australian Care Leavers’ struggle for archival justice in the form of access, and the role of archival and recordkeeping professionals in both furthering and frustrating that struggle. While asserting a professional obligation to participate in a movement towards equity in records and recordkeeping, they observe the profession’s lacklustre collective response and rightfully question the extent to which archival and recordkeeping regimes embedded in existing power structures can meet the needs of the Care Leaver community. This theme appears throughout chapters concerning public records, particularly those produced in the course of systematic dispossession. Using Barbara Klugman’s framework to evaluate social justice advocacy, the authors assess the potential of the Australian Government’s Find and Connect program to further social justice. © 2020 selection and editorial matter David A. Wallace, Wendy M. Duff, Renée Saucier, and Andrew Flinn; individual chapters, the contributors.
Inclusive archives and recordkeeping : Towards a critical manifesto
- Authors: Evans, Joanne , Wilson, Jacqueline
- Date: 2018
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: International Journal of Heritage Studies Vol. 24, no. 8 (2018), p. 857-860
- Full Text: false
- Reviewed:
- Description: Archival practices must now reflect both advances in information technology, and the ethos of inclusivity that assures that the subjects of records have full opportunity to participate in the memory-making process, and to ‘own’ the resulting records. This themed section presents four articles demonstrating various ways in which this is being done or could potentially be done, and why it is needed. The articles model new and innovative modes of archiving, closely collaborative approaches to ensuring that the ‘personal’ is included in the record, and ways in which the norms of historical practice, heritage and social memory can be transformed by new ways of thinking about and defining archival practices. © 2018,
Weapons of affect : The imperative for transdisciplinary information systems design
- Authors: Rolan, Gregory , Evans, Joanne , Bone, Jane , Lewis, Antonina , Golding, Frank , Wilson, Jacqueline , McKemmish, Sue , Mendes, Philip , Reeves, Keir
- Date: 2018
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Proceedings of the Association for Information Science and Technology Vol. 55, no. 1 (2018), p. 420-429
- Full Text: false
- Reviewed:
- Description: Much has been written about ethical and human-centred Information Systems (IS) design, most recently regarding the deleterious outcomes and negative affect of some machine learning applications that embed and perpetuate unethical or even inhumane automation. Terms such as ‘harm’, ‘damage’, and surprisingly, ‘weapon’ have entered the language of this discourse. However, these characteristics are not unique to applications of data science but have long manifested in IS that can also can exhibit opacity and establish tight vicious cycles. These, when coupled with a lack of governance feedback, can perpetuate injustice that has community or sector-wide reach. In this paper, we explore how IS design that sets out with the best of intentions or at least, conceived as a ‘neutral’ system for managing transactional information, can emerge as ‘tools that punish’. We argue that there are crucial principles to be taken from Recordkeeping Informatics, concerned as it is with the entanglement of information and people across space and through time on multi-generational timescales. In particular we discuss how transdisciplinary and critical approaches are necessary to cover more of the design space and surface issues, rights, stakeholders, and, most importantly, values that may be otherwise hidden from a here-and-now, transactional viewpoint.