STOak Time Map : Social Justice in Archival Science

Libraries and archives are traditionally and historically white spaces. In the early 2000s, scholars started to question what was being collected in archives, if it told the whole story, and why marginalized groups' histories were lacking. 

In his seminal piece, Randall Jimerson (2007) asserted that archivists had a duty to actively collect the materials and history of underrepresented groups in the U.S. and engage in political and social issues of their time. This sparked a significant debate within archival scholarship that is still going on today. Soon after that, Mark A. Greene directly responded to Jimerson's piece. Greene asserted that "[i]t isn't the job of the archivist to lead the social justice crusade," but they should make available items and records that "show that injustice has occurred" (2013)." A seemingly just and valid argument, Greene's evidence and understanding of some of the works he cited were questionable. What resulted was a mess of editorials and letters to the editors, archivists going back and forth debating the solidity and soundness of their arguments and the evidence provided. The debate chugs along, with some archivists fighting very hard to collect, preserve, and make available the histories of underrepresented and marginalized people. 

You can see the flow of the argument to the right and can access the articles below. 

• Jimerson, R. (2007). Archives for all: Professional responsibility and social justice. The American Archivist 70 (2): 252-281. https://doi.org/10.17723/aarc.70.2.5n20760751v643m7
• Greene, M. (2013). A critique of social justice as an archival imperative: What is it that we're doing that's all that important? The American Archivist 76 (2): 302-334. https://doi.org/10.17723/aarc.76.2.14744l214663kw43
• Jimerson, R. (2013). Archivists and social responsibility: A Response to Mark Greene. The American Archivist 76 (2): 335-345. https://doi.org/10.17723/aarc.76.2.2627p15350572t21
• Caswel, M. (2013).Not just between us: A Riposte to Mark Greene. The American Archivist 76 (2): 605-608. https://doi.org/10.17723/aarc.76.2.89324135v02r2q74
• Greene, M. (2013). To the Editor. The American Archivist 76 (2): 605-608. https://doi.org/10.17723/aarc.76.2.89324135v02r2q74
• Ramirez, M. (2015). Being assumed not to be: A Critique of Whiteness as an archival imperative. The American Archive 78 (2): 339-356. https://doi.org/10.17723/0360-9081.78.2.339
• Greene, M. (2015). A brief preliminary comment on "Being assumed not to be"--and a pledge this will not become ad hominem ad infinitum. The American Archivist 78 (2): 599-601. https://doi.org/10.17723/0360-9081.78.2.599 
• Boles, F. (2019). To everything there is a season. The American Archivist 82 (2): 598-617. https://doi.org/10.17723/aarc-82-02-21
  • This article was pre-released before the Society of American Archivist's (SAA) annual conference in 2019. It was to be discussed during a Brown Bag Lunch. However, the archivist community pointed to a multitude of issues with the article. Upset that surrounded the article (discussed on Twitter as #thatdarnarticle), including bias, racism, and the lack of academic integrity, resulted in SAA canceling the program, redacting the article, and apologizing. You can find the full article on the Internet Archive. 

Bergis Jules is an archivist, scholar, and founding member of the Shift Collective. He has worked for years discussing the need to diversify archives, archive social justice on social media, and set up community archives.

Check out his keynote presentation given at the National Digital Forum, "The Community is the Archive: Documenting the Social Justice Activism in the Age of Social Media," above.