An important theme that stood out to me from this week’s readings was the notion that archived history is not the same as accurate history. Noriega’s “Preservation Matters” points out flaws surrounding the system of archiving information. An archive implies a complete collection of all existing documentation, gathered and preserved to represent history in its entirety. However, the reality is that not all existing documents find their way to an archive – if the information is even in a documentable form to begin with. A lot of data does not find its way into an archive, and therefore these pieces of history don’t “exist.” Julia Gaffield’s article, “Digging for Lost Documents,” brings up the issue of a fact – a historical occurrence – actually being doubted if it isn’t documented; Haiti’s Declaration of Independence could not be located, and because this physical document didn’t exist, the country’s independence could not be “reaffirmed” (Gaffield). A document was needed to validate this country’s important occurrence, and without it in a locatable archive, that piece of history was not valid. There were many reasons for this archival mishap; Gaffield identifies that “negligence, natural disasters, lack of funding, and political turmoil” can all lead to history being lost and undocumented. Even though those historical events happened, it was not archived, and therefore lost its value to the rest of the world until it was able to be located.
If a document isn’t included in an archive, it’s automatically excluded. Similarly, if a “group isn’t included in an archive, they’re automatically excluded” (Noriega). I took a class last year in Information Studies, where we discussed this social responsibility of the archivist. Noriega’s article reminds me of this modern day issue that if something isn’t online, we assume it doesn’t exist – this can be applied to the notion of an archive as well, as the internet serves as an online archive. Professor Srinivasan of Information Studies at UCLA is a strong advocate for “indigenous and ethnic communities’ appropriated use of media technologies” (Srinivasan) so that underrepresented groups can create their own presence online instead of risking misrepresentation or lack of representation. Srinivasan’s project “Tribal Peace” (http://www.tribalpeace.org/) does exactly this. The website is not only a tool for this Native community, but also serves as an online presence and therefore representation, depicted in a way chosen by the group themselves. Without the help of activists like Srinivasan, financial constraints and bad experiences (Noriega) working on a collaborative project – such as the archivist imposing their own historical account onto a group or event instead of the people being allowed to create their own vision – lead to the lack of an archive for a group. It is important to “facilitate and support” (Noriega) archival efforts in order to achieve complete, unbiased archives and therefore a more accurate account of history.
Chon Noriega, “Preservation Matters”
Gaffield, Julia, “Haiti’s Declaration of Independence: Digging for Lost Documents in the Archives of the Atlantic World”
Srinivasan, “Tribal Peace” http://www.tribalpeace.org/