Two archival studies experts came to Syracuse University on Tuesday to give a talk on archives and the ways they can be used as sites of activism.

Michelle Caswell and Samip Mallick, co-founders of the South Asian American Digital Archive, said that archivists have the power to become activists during times of political and social upheaval based on how they catalog material. About 20 people gathered in Bird Library to attend the talk, called “Now More Than Ever: The Political Urgency of Community Archives.”

Caswell and Mallick have worked together for more than a decade to document, collect and share diverse stories. Their work aims to increase diversity in archiving and transforming the white supremacist foundations of the archival field, Caswell said. Caswell is an associate professor of archival studies at University of California, Los Angeles, while Mallick works as executive director of the South Asian American Digital Archive.

“I want archives to do something that creates a sense of justice for the future,” Mallick said.

The South Asian American Digital Archive, a nonprofit based out of Philadelphia that exists mostly online, borrows materials from individuals and families that are digitized and then returned to their owners. The nonprofit is an example of community archives, which are independent, grassroots collections that have been left out of mainstream archives, Caswell said.

“Community archives are essentially about power,” she said. “It’s communities that have been left out of mainstream archival collecting who feel the energy to get together and (create archives).”

One of the goals of community archiving as a practice is to counter symbolic annihilations with representational belonging, Caswell said. Representational belonging is the idea that people experience a positive feeling when they are adequately, diversely or accurately represented somewhere.

Caswell is also the principal investigator at UCLA’s Community Archives Lab. She and several graduate researchers help conduct focus groups assess the success of community archives. She worked with the groups in the months after the 2016 presidential election, and Caswell said “fear and uncertainty were palpable” among their subjects at the time.

Participants saw archives as spaces to connect past injustices with contemporary activism and future possibilities, Caswell said. One participant drew parallels between past and contemporary laws, such as the anti-gay movement of the 20th century compared to President Trump’s 2017 Muslim ban, she added.

This is an example of how the participants felt that communities could learn how to combat state oppression if communities made better and more activist use of archives, Caswell said. Participants also saw archives as sites of potential political action, she said.

Caswell said that her archival work involves coming up with activities, ideas and actions to work towards dismantling white supremacy, as well as being mindful of which historic records archivists are maintaining. Such work will involve a “path of disruption and resistance.”

“As a field, we need to be unapologetic,” she said.

The event doubled as part of the Syracuse Symposium series and as part of SU’s celebration of Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month.

Mallick and Caswell are hosting an interactive workshop in Bird on Wednesday morning to guide participants through the process of starting and building community archives. The event is by RSVP only.

“I want archives to do something that creates a sense of justice for the future,” Mallick said.

Published on April 23, 2019 at 10:02 pm

Contact Colleen: cefergus@syr.edu | @ColleenEFergus2