Archives Power: Memory, Accountability, and Social Justice
Randall C. Jimerson
Chicago: Society of American Archivists, 2009
Appendix:
MEMORY FOR JUSTICE: REPORT ON A COLLOQUIUM
Nelson Mandela Foundation
Living a Legacy
MEMORY FOR JUSTICE
REPORT ON A COLLOQUIUM
18 August 2005
The event
On 18 August 2005 the Nelson Mandela Foundation hosted a colloquium
dedicated to exploring the theme of “Memory for Justice”. Nearly 100
participants representing more than 30 institutions attended.
Colloquium activities were grouped around four sessions:
• Introduction by Nkosinathi Biko (Founder and Executive Director of the
Steve Biko Foundation). Mr. Biko’s presentation focused on memory as a
powerful catalyst for social change.
• Keynote session addresses by international speakers David A. Wallace
(Visiting Assistant Professor, Catholic University of America) and
Gudmund Valderhaug (Director of Strategy and Planning, Norwegian
Archive, Library and Museum Authority). Dr. Wallace’s address focused
on the role of archivists in striving for historical and contemporary justice.
Mr. Valderhaug’s address focused on the social power exercised by
archivists, and identified systemic shortcomings in archival user services.
• Panel discussion on the South African terrain, which examined South
African experiences of memory construction in the wake of the apartheid
era. The panel was chaired by Sibongiseni Mkhize (Director, Market
Theatre) and comprised five South Africans:
o Graham Dominy (National Archivist, National Archives of South
Africa);
o Sello Hatang (Director, Promotion of Access to Information Act
Unit, Human Rights Commission);
o Anthea Josias (Senior Project Officer, Centre of Memory and
Commemoration, Nelson Mandela Foundation);
o Khwezi ka Mpumlwana (Director, Nelson Mandela Museum); and
o Neo Lekgotla laga Ramoupi (Researcher, South African Research
and Archival Project, Howard University).
• General discussion led by Ciraj Rassool (Associate Professor, History
Department, University of the Western Cape) and the two international
speakers.
A key goal of the colloquium’s organizers was to ensure a productive balance
between formal presentations and open discussion. From this dialogue emerged
key propositions and questions, for institutions, for practitioners, and for society
as a whole. These are detailed below. No attempt has been made to prioritize
these propositions or to resolve any tensions or contradictions that may exist
between them. References to specific sites and cases have been excluded in
favor of propositions carrying general application.
Key Propositions and Questions
Archives and Other Memory Institutions
• The archive must be understood as a social resource that reaches across
conventional disciplinary boundaries.
• The archive is a site of ambiguity. It is best understood as a contested
terrain for memory construction that in turn shapes contemporary
understandings of society.
• Current political landscapes always play a formative role in shaping
archives, both in their scope and content, as well as access to them.
• The challenge faced by those who maintain memory institutions is,
fundamentally, a structural challenge. Structures of power design, shape,
consign and represent the archive. The justice potential of the archive
must be identified and fought for in these contexts.
• There are limitations to a document-focused orientation for engaging and
understanding the archive. The role and work of documents is one
dimension within broader societal memory processes. A wider frame of
reference and utilization of resources is necessary.
• Justice as a concept needs to be examined in the context of dissimilar
traditions, cultures, and epistemologies, which often compete and contest
with one another for supremacy. The shaping roles played by memory
institutions in these relationships must be explored.
• The dimensions of power at play in all acts of memorialization must be
examined and, if necessary, confronted.
Archivists and Other Memory Practitioners
• Those who work with archive should be guided primarily by a concept of,
and commitment to, justice.
• A commitment to justice must be made central to the professional
education of memory practitioners.
• The “archival profession” is socially constructed, and elements of this
construction favor the status quo and impose a spurious philosophy of depoliticized
and objective practices and methods.
• The role and work of archivists and other memory practitioners are best
understood in terms of individual, institutional, and societal power and
influence. The exercise of such power and influence by those who work
with the archive must be properly appreciated.
• There are always systemic barriers to participation in, and access to, the
archive. Prevailing relations of power and influence in societies (even in
democracies) tend to disadvantage certain voices. The call of justice
sounds two imperatives: 1) to pro-actively enable participation and access;
and 2) to construct the archive beyond the normative assumptions
circumscribed by power and the status quo.
• The voices that are absent in the archive can often be filled by imaginative
engagement with resources conventionally not regarded as archival, such
as oral histories.
• Archivists and other memory practitioners are relatively weak socially and
politically, thus limiting their capacities to serve justice. At the same time,
these practitioners are powerful agents in the construction of the past.
• Discussion and debate around the ideas raised and addressed by this
colloquium are largely and regrettably absent in professional archival
forums. Their inclusion needs to be fostered and nurtured.
Society
• Injustice is routinely documented by those who perpetrate it. Such
records are systematically hidden, sanitized, neglected, or destroyed.
Justice requires resistance to such processes.
• The archive provides a powerful resource for restorative justice. It can be
a catalyst for recognizing previously ignored injustices, as well as a tool to
rectify the distortions of the past. At times, even its noted absence can be
a catalyst for restoration.
• Disclosing what was hidden (and what remains secret) is but a first step.
Questions remain as to how the process of disclosure – moving from not
knowing to knowing – can act as the foundation for justice. What is the
next step beyond creating a more accurate version of the past? And how
does that - can that - shape and connect to contemporary struggles for
justice?
• Memory is about the future, a future which we should be making by
resisting exclusion and marginalization.
• In moving from oppression to liberation, close attention needs to be paid
to the resilience of privilege and inequality.
• Democratization routinely is associated with bureaucratization. The ideals
of a liberation struggle must, necessarily, be tempered by the need to
manage competing priorities in contexts of limited resources.
Nelson Mandela Foundation
18 September 2005
[reproduced with permission]
See also the Website : www.nelsonmandela.org