Reading Archives

With this blog, I am planning to offer, as regularly as possible, critical observations on the scholarly and popular literature analyzing the nature of archives or contributing to our understanding of archives in society. I hope this blog will be of assistance to anyone, especially faculty and graduate students, interested in understanding archives and their importance to society.

Monday, April 06, 2009

Housing Memory Conference


Joel A. Blanco-Rivera
PhD Student, University of Pittsburgh

On March 13 and 14 I participated in the conference Housing Memory, hosted at the Faculty of Information at the University of Toronto. The conference was aimed at graduate students and covered a wide variety of topics related to memory and its manifestation in archives, libraries and museums. All the presentations were made by graduate students, at the master and doctoral level, providing an excellent environment to learn and discuss important topics of interest by the new generation of archivists, librarians and museologists. The conference also included the presence of Dr. Geoffrey C. Bowker as the keynote speaker and a round table of faculty from information science and lead by Dr. Jennifer Carter, Assistant Professor in the Museum Studies program at the University of Toronto.

The number of topics was diverse and fascinating: an analysis of Spencer Tunick’s artwork from a museum perspective, the transformation of the print press to the web, memory struggles during transitions in South Africa and Latin America, memory and time capsules, archives and commemoration in the Philippines, documentary film and personal memory. These are just a few examples.

One of the main themes that was constantly part of the presentations and discussions was aspects related to power and control in memory construction. In his presentation about the shift in news production to the web, Bill Mann argued that indeed giant media corporations control what is reported. Trond E. Jacobsen, in his presentation about the Federal Acknowledgement Process, discussed how indigenous groups used records as evidence in their petitions to legitimize their identity as tribal nations.

The round table at the end of the conference provided a very interesting discussion and sharing of ideas between faculty and students. A discussion of particular interest was Dr. Bowker’s argument about memory and forgetting. In his keynote presentation, Bowker argued that, in the particular case of memory and trauma, forgetting should be an option. Indeed, he presented a quote stating that once justice is achieved, forgetting is the best next action. This argument was brought back during the roundtable, in which a student asked the important question of who decides that justice has been served and that it is time to forget.

The conference also highlighted the importance of multidisciplinary work in the field of information science. Not only students in the fields of library, archives and museum were part of the conference, discussions in the various panels touched upon aspects related to memory and information technologies.

A selection of papers presented in this conference will be published at the end of April in the Faculty of Information Quarterly, an open access publication from the Faculty of Information at the University of Toronto.

4 Comments:

At 10:43 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

..."The round table at the end of the conference provided a very interesting discussion and sharing of ideas between faculty and students. A discussion of particular interest was Dr. Bowker’s argument about memory and forgetting. In his keynote presentation, Bowker argued that, in the particular case of memory and trauma, forgetting should be an option. Indeed, he presented a quote stating that once justice is achieved, forgetting is the best next action. This argument was brought back during the roundtable, in which a student asked the important question of who decides that justice has been served and that it is time to forget.


Interesting questions, but what does one do when justice has not been served ? Can one forget or let it continue to fester ?

It's a noble undertaking at least to ask such a question, at least on the part of a student.

 
At 12:00 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Do you think as educators discussing memory in trauma victims, that it is the same as discussing memory and the sciences as in Dr. Bowker's recent book?

I don't believe it is quite the same comparison to make, even as educators in information sciences, rather than that of mental health professionals or other social work professionals. Thats a bit extreme in terms of attempts at interdisciplinarity.

It works with certain types of warehousing of memory perhaps more than others.

 
At 12:01 PM, Blogger Joel Blanco said...

"Do you think as educators discussing memory in trauma victims, that it is the same as discussing memory and the sciences as in Dr. Bowker's recent book?"

It is not the same. Indeed, one of the main issues (and criticisms) about memory studies is that the concept has been used in so many areas, that even defining it is challenging.

Dr. Bowker's presentation covered many areas, including the two areas you mention in your question. But to clarify, he was not making a comparison between them. Memory and trauma is another area that Dr. Bowker is interested in studying.

As for the question of memory and forgetting, it is one that has no simple answer and give the grounds to interesting discussion, which happened in the round table. This is something I'm struggling in my own research. Discussion about this topic focuses a lot in ethics of memory, but this will also include looking at what scholars like Duncan Bell calls the "ethics of forgetting."

 
At 11:48 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I tend to agree with professor Bowker.

"The power of memory", understandably, has quickly become common currency in the archival community. It serves to bolster archives' role in society and to promote such documentary-laden notions as accountability and evidence, often linked to issues of achieving social justice through truthful, accurate memory. These arguments are certainly laudable and well-intentioned. At the same time, there is plenty of room for more symmetrical - critical - archival scholarship on the potentially adverse social and political consequences of keeping "complete" "comprehensive" accurate records - failure to forget - as a form of unhealthy, dangerous social "dysfunctionality. "

That is, our inability to form healthy communities without feeling a need to lawyer up with documentation of everything is a sign of something gone very much awry. Indeed, it is an irony that the compulsion to document may subvert any genuine sense of community.

 

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