Places From Which to Speak¹

[1]This is a version of a dissertation originally submitted in partial fulfilment of the MA Archives and Records Management, University College London, SLAIS 2006. I would like to thank all those individuals and institutions who have given of their time so freely to contribute to this study, and who have made it such an interesting and rewarding experience. I would also like to thank Andrew Flinn, whose enthusiasm and guidance provided the original impetus for the research.

Abstract

This paper concerns the ambivalent nature of the relationships between informal archives organisations representing diasporic communities and more formal archives institutions within the professional context of increased emphasis on agendas of ‘inclusion’, emanating from both government and professional bodies. The reasons for this ambivalent attitude to ‘inclusion’ are explored, and are seen to stem from a perceived absence and misrepresentation of diasporic communities on the part of formal heritage organisations. Strategies and patterns of resistance to assimilation are centred around the use of archives to control discourse, and through the use of the archive as a symbol or symbolic space. This resistance is shown to be viable, workable and located within grounded practice.

Notes

[1]This is a version of a dissertation originally submitted in partial fulfilment of the MA Archives and Records Management, University College London, SLAIS 2006. I would like to thank all those individuals and institutions who have given of their time so freely to contribute to this study, and who have made it such an interesting and rewarding experience. I would also like to thank Andrew Flinn, whose enthusiasm and guidance provided the original impetus for the research.

[2] Diversity in general is here defined as ‘the range of visible and non-visible differences that exist between people. These differences include those relating to ethnicity and race, class, intellectual and physical ability, urban and rural living, faith and gender, sexuality and age.’ MLA, New Directions in Social Policy, 2. This study focuses on cultural diversity, or those differences relating to ethnicity and race.

[3] See the Mayor of London's Commission on African and Asian Heritage (MCAAH), Delivering Shared Heritage, 13. Also NEMLAC's definition of mainstreaming diversity as ‘recognising that everyone is different and respecting and encouraging those differences for the benefit of all …’, NEMLAC, Cultural Diversity Strategy, 4 (my emphasis).

[4] See, for example, MLA, New Directions in Social Policy. See also the ‘Cultural Diversity Checklist’, the ‘Access for All Self-Assessment Toolkit’, and guides from SEMLAC and EMMLAC, as listed in MLA, New Directions in Social Policy, 17; NEMLAC, Cultural Diversity Strategy; The National Archives, Caribbean Studies and Black and Asian History; The National Archives, Moving Here; Archives, Libraries, Museums London, Black and Minority Ethnic Engagement with London's Museums; London Museums Agency, Holding Up the Mirror.

[5] MLA, New Directions in Social Policy, 6, which cites a number of legal frameworks, the most recent including the Race Relations (Amendment) Act (2000), Equality in Religion and Belief (2003), Race Regulations (2003) (incorporating EU Race directives into UK law) and the Commission for Equality and Human Rights White Paper (2004).

[6] Community Access to Archives Project, Final Report and Best Practice Guidelines, 47.

[7] In addition to the documents already mentioned relating to the heritage sector, this foregrounding of culture is also demonstrated by recent changes in the Local Government Acts, which states that Local Cultural Strategies should be subsumed within Community Plans. It is argued that ‘There is a growing realisation at all levels—from Central Government to grassroots organisations—that the impact of culture goes much deeper and wider than previously believed. Culture is at the very core of the sort of lives we want to lead, meeting out profoundest needs for self-fulfilment as well as helping us develop social bonds.’ Department for Culture, Media and Sport, Leading the Good Life, 1.

[8] The MCAAH, for example, notes that ‘The work of community-based heritage-focused organisations helps to empower and maintain the social and cultural integrity of African and Asian communities’, and serve as ‘unique platforms from which history, culture and values are expressed’, sustaining community cohesion and driving cultural ownership. MCAAH, Delivering Shared Heritage, 20.

[9] Department for Culture, Media and Sport, ‘Centres,’ 3 (see also p. 7).

[10] Such a role has been fully embraced by the Archives Task Force, Listening to the Past, Speaking to the Future, 28. It is also demonstrated by actual projects, for example, the Community Access to Archives Project.

[11] See, for example, Anderson, ‘Managing Change and Chance’; Grabowski, ‘Fragments or Components’; Grigg, ‘A World of Repositories, a World of Records’; Kreneck, ‘Documenting a Mexican American Community.’

[12] Sam Walker, interview, 14 July 2006.

[13] 24dash.com, ‘National Black Cultural Archives to Get New Home in Brixton.’

[14] See http://www.bcaheritage.org.uk (accessed 15 September 2008).

[15] Coventry Teaching PCT & The Herbert, Coming to Coventry.

[16]After being involved in a previous exhibition and collecting project (Invisible Histories, 2000), which involved members of the community and which resulted in the ‘Kabhi Ritz, Kabhie Palladium’ exhibition, describing the history of Asian cinema in Coventry dating back to the 1940s, requests were made by members of the community for a more general exhibition.

[17] See Future Histories, http://www.futurehistories.org.uk/ (accessed 25 June 2006).

[18] George Padmore Institute, ‘The George Padmore Institute—Aims and Current Activities’.

[19] London Metropolitan Archive, The Groundings with Bogle-L'Ouverture, 15.

[20] See Northamptonshire Black History Association, http://www.northants-black-history.org.uk/index.asp (accessed 2 July 2006).

[21] Archives Task Force, Listening to the Past, Speaking to the Future, 12.

[22] Schwartz and Cook, ‘Archives, Records and Power,’ 10. The full quote reads ‘Archivists—as keepers of context—have, with a growing number of exceptions, singularly fallen behind in their theorising about archives and records, and the power relations embedded in them, shunning the shifting, interactive and dynamic perspectives of the post-modern relativity for the more comfortable and passive stance of the detached observer.’ See also Kaplan, ‘We Are What We Collect,’ 147, for similar sentiments.

[23] For Derrida, the archive is ‘the principle according to nature or history, there where things commence … but also the principle according to the law, there where men and gods command, there where authority, social order are exercised, in this place from which order is given.’ Derrida, Archive Fever, 1.

[24] This is not necessarily to imply that these agendas are not beneficial, and that excellent work is not being done by archives institutions and organisations within this area. However, this does not alter the fact that a naiveté and lack of understanding exists.

[25] This has been described in greater detail by Newman and McLean, who employ a ‘circuit of culture’ framework to describe more fully how the social practices of regulation, representation and production control the nature of consumption and influence identities created in a museological context. They discuss how differing cultural capital can lead to feelings of exclusion, both from institutions as a whole, and individual exhibitions. This in turn can lead to a lack of engagement and perceived relevance, and also, more disturbingly, feelings of hostility or anxiety towards an institution. Newman and McLean, ‘The Impact of Museums upon Identity,’ 59. This is also mirrored in the MCAAH report: ‘The mainstream heritage sector continues to carry the stigma of elitism and shows few signs of moving towards a more egalitarian approach in all that it does … So long as the curatorial and employment practices continue to exclude rather than include the communities around the heritage collections, there will be little sympathy for the museum's grievances within these communities or acceptance of their defence against glaring instances of non-representation.’ MCAAH, Delivering Shared Heritage, 10.

[26] See, for example, Clifford, The Predicament of Culture; Clifford, Routes. Travels and Translation in the Late Twentieth Century; Ramirez, ‘Brokering Identities; Karp and Wilson, ‘Constructing the Spectacle of Culture in Museums’; Anderson and Reeves, ‘Contested Identities.’

[27] See, for example, Barringer in Tulloch, ‘Picture This; The Black Curator,’ 173. ‘Museums were … typically located at the centre of cities where they stood as embodiments, both material and symbolic, of a power to “show and tell.”‘ Bennett, ‘The Exhibitionary Complex’, 109.

[28] Hall, ‘Whose Heritage?,’ 24.

[29] For Hall, this marginalisation is a product of ‘a set of quite specific political and cultural practices which regulated, governed and “normalised” the representational and discursive spaces of English society.’ Hall, ‘New Ethnicities,’ 441. See also Kaplan, who argues that ‘the pervading view of archives as sites of historical truth is at best outdated and at worst inherently dangerous. The archive doesn't just happen; it is created by individuals and organisations and used, in turn, to support their values and missions, all of which comprises a process that is certainly not politically and culturally neutral.’ Kaplan, ‘We Are What We Collect,’ 147.

[30] Martin, ‘Inheriting Diversity,’ 198.

[31] For example, Future Histories was started as a direct reaction to the difficulty of accessing records on black theatre, alerting the co-founder, Alda Terracciano, to the fact that ‘the absence of records meant that even a physical presence on the stage could be denied.’ Alda Terracciano, interview, 11 August 2006. The George Padmore Institute archive was begun because the founders, and the black community in general ‘actually experienced a denial of the basis of Afro-Caribbean knowledge, in the sense that, not only were they not allowed to necessarily express their views, but that those views weren't there in the first place … They'd been removed'. Sarah Garrod, interview, 27 July 2006. This was also true for the BCA, with Sam Walker stating that ‘I mean, it's a racist society we know, and for many people, black people haven't contributed to British society. It was therefore important … that we should have this organisation … To document and collect black history, and to show the positive contributions of black people to that history’, Sam Walker, interview, 14 July 2006. Nicola Taylor of the NBHA also commented that ‘with a lot of black and minority ethnic communities, they weren't included in the first place, so they had nothing to opt out of. So our community archive is slightly different. We're helping people to get in, and then 20 years down the line they might have that option to opt out, and to have a more community archive, housed maybe in community centres. Perhaps that's another step. For us, it was all about getting people in’. Nicola Taylor, interview, 8 August 2006. With regards to misrepresentation, the comments of Sam Walker were clear, ‘our history has been collected and document it in an improper way, so we need to collect and document it is a proper way.’ Sam Walker, interview, 14 July 2006. This point was further asserted by Paul Reid when discussing the need for more black archivists, the training of which was seen as one of the more important objectives of the BCA. See also Jacobs and Falconer, ‘Ka Mua; Ka Muri Walking Backwards into the Future’ for a discussion of a more pragmatic need to address issues of representation in collecting and documenting.

[32] Hall, ‘Whose Heritage?,’ 24 (my emphasis).

[33] For Hall, this British sense of Heritage ‘is bound into the meaning of the nation through a double inscription. What the nation means is essentialised … its essential meaning appears to have emerged at the very moment of its origin—a moment always lost in the myths, as well as the mists, of time—and then successively embodied as a distilled essence in the various arts and artefacts of the nation for which the heritage provides the archive’ Hall, ‘Whose Heritage?,’ 24.

[34] For example, Sam Walker stated that ‘Black people generally, we haven't grown up in a society where you collect old stuff.’ Sam Walker, interview, 14 July 2006. This aspect of community relationships was also intimated by Frieda Midgley. ‘For some people, the archive system we have in this country is completely alien. There's a total disjunction.’ Frieda Midgley, interview, 27 July 2006. This is perhaps most foregrounded in a number of ways by the NBHA. For many of the groups involved, the past was constituted through oral history, around which there was a common understanding, more so than the depositing of paper records.

[35] Community Access to Archives Project, Final Report and Best Practice Guidelines, 27. This issue is obviously linked, and part of, the broader issues of the changing services archives are increasingly being expected to offer. See, for example, Chute, ‘What's in a Name?’; Gray, ‘Relating into Relevance’; Longmore, ‘Business Orientation and Customer Service Delivery.’ This connection is explicitly made by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport: ‘we believe that libraries, museums, galleries and archives are only likely to be effective as agents of social change if they themselves are accessible organisations, whose culture recognises the work that they, and all their staff, have to play in providing services to all sections of the community.’ Department for Culture, Media and Sport, Libraries, Museums, Galleries and Archives for All, 11.

[36] For example, the MCAAH complains that the ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach to funding is unsuitable to a more diverse range of, and approaches to, heritage, and that a certain lack of expertise is demonstrated on the part of the HLF in assessing these types of bids. MCAAH, ‘Delivering Shared Heritage,' 45.

[37]Connected to this, and of interest in the context of resistance foregrounded in this study, is also the idea that this dedication required in an environment characterised by scarce resources is actually, in some ways, generative of, a driver of, practices of resistance. Professional practices differing from more formal archives institutions are a necessity for continued survival in such environments, and constitute a highly adaptable and resourceful identity. This is exhibited, to a certain extent, with the George Padmore Institute, as will be discussed more fully below.

[38] Community Access to Archives Project, Final Report and Best Practice Guidelines, 40. See also, for example, MCAAH, who note that many community-based heritage organisations prefer to work independently of mainstream heritage sectors even though, as has been seen above, this can lead to greater difficulties in obtaining funding. The Community Access to Archives Project Final Report and Best Practice Guidelines also states that ‘In terms of how the professional archives community can have an understanding of social exclusion, they must first admit to a distinct lack of credibility with certain communities, and this will not be easy to address, due to the historical response of many communities, especially those who are marginalised, to closely guard their cultural property and heritage’ (p. 40).

[39] Again, see, for example, Community Access to Archives Project, which argues that ‘The concept of ownership is fundamental to community archives, as their primary function is to provide a vehicle for communities to record their own understanding of their own history; community engagement with the project depends on a sense of ownership of both the archive and its contents.’‘Community archives are, and must remain, the property of the community.’ Community Access to Archives Project, Final Report and Best Practice Guidelines, 11.

[40] As Small notes, ‘These efforts have not led to any fundamental transformation in the institutional principles or practices of museums in this country, nor in the essential structures, decision-making processes, or overall representation of black people that continue to prevail in most museums.’ Small, ‘Contextualising the Black Presence in British Museums,’ 52. It could, of course, be argued that such changes, required at such a fundamental level, take time, and that we, as a profession, are at the very beginning of the process, with so much still to learn, and so many new skills and approaches to develop, as is evidenced by the profusion of reports, toolkits, strategies etc. mentioned above. While the absence of change is, therefore, both understandable (although still maybe not excusable), it can be argued that this does not make a difference. What is important is this perception, on the part of the communities, of resistance, or at least an absence of commitment to, real, ‘meaningful’ change within formal institutions.

[41] Littler, ‘British Heritage,’ 9.

[42] MCAAH, Delivering Shared Heritage, 3 (my emphasis).

[43] Archives Task Force, Listening to the Past, Speaking to the Future, 10–11. See also their statement, already briefly mentioned in part, that; ‘The Task Force is fully committed to the principle that the resources in community archives’ collections should be accessible to everyone, and the archives in the community are as important to society as those in public collections’ (p. 43).

[44] Naidoo, ‘Never Mind the Buzzwords,’ 40.

[45] Ibid., 45.

[46] Such a concern was mentioned by Frieda Midgley: ‘a lot of black historians, there's this sort of anxiety about making any of their work available on the Internet, because they don't want it to be appropriated by the mainstream. A subset of black intelligentsia, that there is a strong feeling of keeping things very much to themselves, to retain control over that history.’ Frieda Midgley, interview, 27 July 2006.

[47] Hall, ‘Whose Heritage?,’ 27.

[48] Mutiti, ‘Re-figuring the Archives,’ 202.

[49] Katuu, ‘Engaging Orality Within the Archival Discipline.’ Katuu complains that archival discourse remains rooted in 16th to 17th-century Europe, closely associated with a rationalist development of law and history.

[50] Hamilton, Harris, and Reid, ‘Introduction,’ 12.

[51] Harris, ‘The Archival Sliver,’ 77.

[52] Ibid.

[53] Mutiti, ‘Re-figuring the Archives.’

[54] Hamilton, Harris, and Reid, ‘Introduction,’ 12.

[55] See, for example, Stoler, ‘Colonial Archives.’

[56] Hamilton, Harris, and Reid, ‘Introduction,’ 7.

[57] Peterson, ‘The Archives,’ 35.

[58] Paul Reid, interview, 25 September 2008.

[59] See Tulloch, ‘Picture This; The Blak Curator,’ for an excellent description of this within a museological perspective.

[60]‘we had a huge turnout, of people from the community at the launch, and the speeches went on for hours, partly because people, in an impromptu fashion, just jumped up and took the platform.’ Alison Taylor, interview, 24 July 2006.

[61] Newman and McLean, ‘The Impact of Museums upon Identity.’

[62] Alda Terracciano, interview, 11 August 2006.

[63]‘And then we occupied the central space at TNA. We put some very, very beautiful light sculptures, which were in storage at motiroti and had been used for performance, because the idea of the archive is also how you recycle to create new work, re-invent, re-interpret. And so we put these in a circle, that again reminded of the idea of the enclosed space for exchange. And then on these pillars we projected these visuals which quite obviously then fragmented. And it was the idea that you can never build an image as it was when it was first produced … It's always a re-figuring, it's always a reflection.’ Alda Terracciano, interview, 11 August 2006.

[64] Alda Terracciano, interview, 11 August 2006.

[65] This didacticism was also found within the NBHA, with an emphasis on the challenging nature of the relationships between the local authority institutions, most notably the Record Office, and the community organisations; ‘And it is important to have contacts and their relationship with us. Developing for next year, the commemoration of the abolition of slavery, the archivists are going to do something for that, but they are going to use some of our groups. A focus group about what they do. They're planning to do something, but they want to make sure they get it right.’ Nicola Taylor, interview, 8 August 2006.

[66]Sam Walker states: ‘they [the founders] found that it was important, indeed crucial, that they establish such an organisation, so that people can have another view of the history, so that black people can be linked to a history which has got their own, if you like, their own imprimatur, rather than the history which people grew up with, the history that people are taught. Sam Walker, interview, 14 July 2006. These sentiments are echoed by Sarah Garrod at the GPI; ‘Well, I think in concrete terms it's to provide a means for people to research material that was previously unknown to them. In many cases, people who didn't have the opportunity to experience it when they were younger because they had a distorted view in the society they were living in. Not exclusively, but certainly in a lot of cases.’ Sarah Garrod, interview, 27 July 2006.

[67]‘Part of the beauty of the archives for the Huntleys, it's for education, the power of the written word.’ Richard Wiltshire, interview, 1 August 2006.

[68]‘It gives people as well a sense of pride and belonging … and throughout, they've been in art, they've been in medicine, so it gives them that sense of pride and belonging to society which they always felt that, you know, they haven't contributed anything, especially in a racist society’. Sam Walker, interview, 14 July 2006.

[69]‘And I think it's important to learn from the archive about how to set up your own project. Not necessarily your own archive project, but how to go about setting up community events or … to learn how to set up your own campaigns, events, the self-help as it were.’ Sarah Garrod, interview, 27 July 2006. This was also an important aspect of the Future Histories project; ‘A major part, which we have played so far, has been to basically, to train … basically in raising the awareness of the importance of preserving the heritage in the black community. We have been delivering papers at conferences, having private meetings and having surgeries with a number of performing arts companies which produce work that's relevant to the African and Asian communities in this country. And therefore raising the awareness, making people aware of what they are sitting on, is shaking and is agitating. Because what is important is that the archives is a tool to raise awareness.’ Alda Terracciano, interview, 11 August 2006.

[70] The ‘Coming to Coventry’ project, Future Histories and the BCA were all involved in staging exhibitions.

[71] Paul Reid, interview, 25 September 2008. Sam Walker also stated that ‘it's very important that we have black people qualified to catalogue stuff … they're also going to be coming with their own sort of, they've lived difficulties in the environment, they have their own cultural background in common with the papers.’ Sam Walker, interview, 14 July 2006. For further examples, see Small, ‘Contextualising the Black Presence in British Museums,’ 58.

[72] Lavine, ‘Audience, Ownership, and Authority,’ 138.

[73] Sam Walker continued the above, stating: It's like many years ago, a lot of people were talking about the Brixton riots. I think black people would probably say to you well, they're actually not riots, using language here. They're actually protests. So some people would come and categorise these as riots, but other people, black people, would come and categorise these as protests. Because what were behind these, you know, were bad housing, unemployment you know, all that sort of stuff. So to a black person it was a protest about that sort of stuff, rather than having 50 people just come together and think right lets go and burn that down.’ Sam Walker, interview, 14 July 2006. A further example of this are the debates surrounding thesauri. The ‘Queer Thesaurus,’ produced by Homodok and described by Reid reverses conceptual norms by assuming homosexuality as the normative, and therefore making the word itself redundant, thereby highlighting process of exclusion. Reid, ‘The History of the Past,’ 201. According to Reid the thesaurus ‘informs, by providing a myriad wider terms in order to create a standard reference text for archivists … It influences, in that, through the process of naming and categorising, the thesaurus will leave an indelible stamp on archive repositories’. Reid, ‘The History of the Past,’ 203. In a similar way, the negotiations between the New Zealand Government and the Maori can also be seen to problematise archival practices and suggest, inform, new ones; ‘Maori seek information across all administrative sectors, in relation to land, peoples or place. The provenance of records may not be foremost in Maori researchers’ minds, therefore description of the record context alone cannot lead them to Maori material.’ Jacobs and Falconer, ‘Ka Mua; Ka Muri Walking Backwards into the Future,’ 15.

[74]‘And as I say again, the other thing that has deterred us from having stuff, quite apart from the issue of resources as well, have been the environmental conditions, and that as well could stop people from giving us their stuff. I think all of this will come good when we go to Raleigh Hall.’ Sam Walker, interview, 14 July 2006.

[75]‘Over the years, one of the things that has affected our collecting a lot more things is about the credibility of the organisation itself. Because many people see that, well, you are mainly funded by Lambeth Council, it's not a lot of funding, if anything should happen, and we've given you our stuff, you know … what would happen to our documents. So for that reason, some people have felt well, I'd rather give it to the Museum of London or the University museum, because they can see that there's some sort of permanency attached to them, while with us people might feel that we're sort of transitory. But now with the current development, people are beginning to see as well that there's longevity in what we're trying to do and people are beginning to warm up to the idea of wanting to deposit or bequeath their things to us.’ Sam Walker, interview, 14 July 2006.

[76] Mbembe, ‘The Power,’ 19.

[77]‘It gives black people also, it says to black people, here is an institution collecting black history and giving, if you like, another side of that history, and it is being done by, controlled by and managed by black people. So in terms of young people as well, they can see that within the society in which we live, there's an institution that's properly run and managed by people like themselves.’ Sam Walker, interview, 14 July 2006. See also http://www.bcaheritage.org.uk (accessed 15 September 2008).

[78] Paul Reid, interview, 25 September 2008.

[79] Stoler, ‘Colonial Archives,’ 91.

[80]‘The fact that these materials arise out of the activities of the Trustees, and organisations and individuals connected with them over a period of more than 40 years gives the George Padmore Institute archive a unique activist and organic character.’ George Padmore Institute, ‘The George Padmore Institute—Aims and Current Activities,’ 2.

[81]‘So a lot of the stuff might be destroyed because it's ephemeral stuff. I'm cataloguing things like flyers, even just notes scrawled on paper, which when you first look at them you think is there any point in keeping this’. Sarah Garrod, interview, 27 July 2006.

[82]‘Of course there wasn't any formal filing … it was [done] in a rush in a lot of cases, it was being written in people's homes, it was being done on the kitchen table in John's [LaRose] house, every major campaign or document that came out was written on that table.’ Sarah Garrod, interview, 27 July 2006.

[83] Sarah Garrod, interview, 27 July 2006.

[84]‘Anyway, there's a great determination there to really get that word out, before someone else did, and to make sure that they really got their part of the story. And I think that's something very important to preserve’. Sarah Garrod, interview, 27 July 2006.

[85] Alda Terracciano, interview, 11 August 2006.

[86]‘So, already, pointing out the absence of such work, and already alerting the funders and people in the academic world, and people within heritage that none of this work has been done has, obviously, by default, agitated.’ Alda Terracciano, interview, 11 August 2006.

[87] Alda Terracciano, interview, 11 August 2006.

[88]‘Future Histories was meant to be from the very beginning a shaker, an agitator. It was very important for us to look at places where the archive would have had an impact, culturally and in education. For that reason, coupled to the fact that Middlesex University at that time seemed to be more open to the idea of having an archive without necessarily owning it, we decided to place it there.’ Alda Terracciano, interview, 11 August 2006.

[89]‘I don't think people perceived it as a problem, the fact that whatever material they gave would end up in the Herbert. I mean, that was pushed at the beginning and people were clear about that. But I think it was a perception that that was actually a good thing, because it gave some kind of prestige, that it might not have had otherwise. You know, the thought that their story would end up in the City Archives, and other people would be able to see it in future, and that it would go in a book, and it would go in an exhibition, it seemed to be an incentive rather than otherwise.’ Alison Taylor, interview, 24 July 2006.

[90]‘We all know the image that we have about archivists, you know, they're as old as the documents they're guarding. You do have that stereotypical image of the archivist or of the librarian. And I think what's been really, really good is that this has challenged that, and challenged the whole perception of what they actually do there. Challenging themselves as well as the users … Because usually you've got white, middle-class elderly people who are used to using the archive day in day out. They know how the system works … and suddenly they've got a whole new bunch of people from various age groups, from various backgrounds, from various ethnic groups, who haven't got a clue, don't necessarily understand, maybe, why you've got this building. And suddenly it challenges everybody's perceptions. And I think that's a really good thing, but also for the record office staff and their more traditional users.’ Nicola Taylor, interview, 8 August 2006.

[91] E. L. Doctrow, in Wood, ‘The Fetish of the Document,’ 21.

[92] Small, ‘Contextualising the Black Presence in British Museums,’ 59.

[93] Hall, ‘Cultural Identity and Diaspora,’ 58.