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Abstract
This article uses ethnographic research methods to explore the various forms of engagement between mainstream publicly‐funded archives in the UK and independent ‘community archives’. Shifts in the understanding of the role of archives in society, combined with pressure from historically marginalised groups for greater visibility for their histories, have led mainstream organisations to develop more flexible working practices. These practices cover custodial arrangements, collections policy, curation and dissemination, training and consultancy. The most successful allow communities to combine the retention of control over their material with provision for its long‐term preservation. Where once community‐based groups were under pressure to hand over their archives, now the emphasis is on the handing on of knowledge to future generations and the sharing of expertise between organisations. However, working with community archives also presents challenges to dominant professional assumptions and practices and archivists need to be more sensitive to the motivations and experiences of their community‐based partners.
Acknowledgements
This article is based on the interim findings of a project entitled ‘Community archives and identities: documenting and sustaining community heritage’, at University College London. The research team was composed of the three authors and project was funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. It would not have been possible without the help and partnership provided by our case studies (Future Histories, rukus!, Moroccan Memories, Eastside Community Heritage) and all the other participants and interviewees. All the participants cited in this article were shown a draft in advance of publication, to which they had the opportunity to propose amendments, and we are grateful for their cooperation and support in producing this text.
Notes
1. Hopkins (Citation2008) also deals specifically with community archives and community engagement.
2. For Canada see http://www.missionarchives.com/ and http://www.nanaimoarchives.ca/ [both accessed 20 August 2009] and Millar (Citation1998, pp. 131–132). For the USA see the online resource Information for Community Archives (Citation2007) produced by the Gay and Lesbian Roundtable of the Society of American Archivists. In his article on the archival practices of Latino/a communities in California Mario Ramírez avoids the terminology altogether, simply contrasting the ‘State’ and ‘Latino’ archives (Ramírez Citation2009). In Australia, the National Archives has recently published Keep it for the future! How to set up small community archives (McAdam and National Archives of Australia Citation2007), a handbook aimed at a broad range of community groups.
3. On the use of the term ‘community archives’ in a policy context in the UK see the report of the Archives Task Force (Citation2004, p. 43). The Community Access to Archives Project (CAAP) which ran from November 2003 to October 2004 developed a Best Practice Model for ‘the establishment and maintenance of community relations, and the development, implementation and maintenance of community archive projects’ (CAAP Citation2004, p. 7). More information on CAAP and its publications is available from Community Access to Archives project (Citation2006). CAAP was succeeded in 2005 by the Community Archive Development Group (CADG), since 2008 the Community Archive Heritage Group (CAHG), affiliated to the National Council on Archives, testament to developing mainstream professional interest in this area (see Community archives: Terms of reference Citation2003).
4. Sir Hilary Jenkinson was deputy keeper of the Public Record Office from 1947 to 1954 (where he had worked since 1906) and the author of the first major handbook on modern records management in English, Manual of Archive Administration, first published 1922.
5. Some of these benefits are set out in a 2007 briefing document on community archives from the south‐east region of the Museums Libraries and Archives Council. The document does not however discuss the political dimension to community archives, beyond noting that ‘they can foster active citizenship within a multicultural democracy’ (In brief Citation2007, p. 2)
6. Facilitating the development of ‘equitable partnerships’ between community‐based organisations and mainstream heritage institutions was one of the core objectives of the London Mayor's Commission on African and Asian Heritage (Citation2005). The findings of the commission are discussed by Temi Odumosu (Citation2007).
7. Whilst a number of archival theorists have advocated the increased use of ethnography in this field (e.g. McKemmish et al., pp. 166–168) only a very small number of studies have been carried out, and most have focused on the practices of archivists and record‐keepers rather than on the nature of their interactions with the public, or the uses to which records are put by particular audiences. Examples of the use of ethnography in archival studies include Gracy (Citation2004) and Trace (Citation2006).
8. http://www.futurehistories.org.uk/ [Accessed 23 August 2009]. Future Histories was founded by Dr Alda Terracciano and Ameena M. McConnell. They describe its aim as ‘to preserve memory and to promote the creativity and achievements of this community and its place in British history’ (personal communication, 16 March 2009).
9. Since Moroccan Memories was a stand‐alone project of the MRCF and the data collected concerned only this project and not the other activities of the MRCF the project will be referred to simply as Moroccan Memories from here on. Fieldwork with our fourth case study, Eastside Community Heritage, a community archive engaging diverse communities in east London, was just beginning at the time of writing and as a consequence the only data available relating to this organisation was a single interview.
10. Since the closure of the Theatre Museum in January 2007 and its reincorporation into the V&A (its parent body), the V&A has housed the ‘national collection of material about live performance in the UK’ (Theatre collections on line). The online exhibition, ‘Trading Faces’, was launched on 6 February 2009 and can be accessed at http://www.tradingfacesonline.com [last accessed 23 August 2009].
11. Future Histories, the George Padmore Institute, the Northamptonshire Black History Association and the Huntley Collections at the LMA are all profiled in more detail in Hopkins (Citation2008, pp. 85–88).
12. In a digital age such fears can also be mitigated by the possibilities of making material available in digital form to a wider audience than just the users of a particular repository.
13. The need for practitioners with in‐depth knowledge of black performing arts to actively disseminate archive material is highlighted in the Whose Theatre…? report which calls for the use of archives to educate broadcast and print critics about black theatre and in general ‘more effective ways of ensuring that lessons from the past are learned’ (Young Citation2006, p. 7).
14. For example, board members of Future Histories were able to name several black theatre companies whose records had entirely or very largely disappeared as recently as the early 1990s (the Keskidee Arts Centre, one of the main venues for experimental black theatre in the 1970s, is perhaps the most important example). As Andrew Flinn has noted with reference to the Manchester Studies Archive Retrieval programme, since the 1970s there have also been instances of serious efforts to identify and safeguard at‐risk material (Flinn Citation2007, p. 163). But a great deal has also been lost. Staff of the British Library sound archive also noted with regard to audiovisual material such as oral history recordings that local public repositories are often still reluctant to accept deposits because of a lack of the skills and facilities required to manage this material (interview with Rob Perks and Mary Stewart, 16 February 2009).
15. For a discussion of developments in archival public programming see Bradley (Citation2006).
16. A more recent collaboration between Lambeth Archives and the Black Cultural Archives is described in Newman (Citation2009).
17. Partly in response to the lack of mainstream provision in this area, in 2006 Future Histories produced a series of workshops across the UK entitled ‘The Art of Archiving’ aimed at ‘small and medium scale performing arts companies producing work relevant to people of African and Asian descent in the UK’ and intended to convey basic preservation and cataloguing skills (Workshops Citation2005).
18. For a history of the Institute of Race Relations, including details of its archiving project, see Bourne (Citation2008).
19. Possibly in reference to the conference of the same name put on by the African and Asian Visual Artists' Archive (AAVAA) of London at the Tate Gallery in 1997. Stuart Hall gave the keynote address (Hall Citation2001)
20. The reasons for the ‘long‐standing and genuine cultural resistance and mistrust between most Black people in Britain and the heritage sector’ are discussed in more detail by Martin (Citation2005, p. 197).
21. This criticism was much in evidence at a symposium, ‘Heritage, Legacy and Leadership: Ideas and Interventions’, hosted by the Cultural Leadership Programme and the Mayor's Commission on African and Asian Heritage on 22 February 2008, particularly in a session where participants reflected on their experiences of collaboration in 2007 to mark the bicentenary of the abolition of the British transatlantic slave trade (see Cultural Leadership Programme Citation2008). The archives of the BASA (Black and Asian Studies Association) JISCmail also provide evidence of this frustration. As Anita Corry put it, ‘Many of us have willingly given time (or know thers [sic] who have), paid and unpaid, only for it to attributed [sic] to another’ (Corry Citation2007). Cliff Pereira is another member who has voiced similar concerns (Pereira Citation2008).
22. By way of example, designer, film‐maker and web designer Mohssin Faraji's work for Moroccan Memories would be the envy of many mainstream organisations (http://www.moroccanmemories.org.uk [Accessed 23 August 2009]) and Eastside Community Heritage's capacity to migrate hundreds of hours of recordings from tapes to minidisks and then, only two years later, to hard drives shows both a rare technical know‐how and a high level of organisational vision. However, we also encountered volunteers and staff struggling with chaotic electronic filing systems and unfamiliar with even the most basic functions in standard software such as Excel. Moreover, one freelance researcher, confessed that she had been ‘too ashamed’ to ask for help from British Library staff when she ran into difficulties with their manuscripts catalogue.