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ORIGINAL PAPER
Self-determination and archival autonomy:
advocating activism
Joanne Evans
1
•Sue McKemmish
1
•
Elizabeth Daniels
1
•Gavan McCarthy
2
Published online: 21 April 2015
Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2015
Abstract This paper explores the role of archival activism in supporting social
movements linked to human rights and social justice agendas. Taking a records
continuum perspective, it presents an Australian case study relating to the Stolen
Generations, Former Child Migrants, Forgotten Australians and Forced Adoption
communities to illustrate imperatives for advocacy and activism in support of the
‘‘archival autonomy’’ of communities. Framed by critical theory, the study identifies
and analyses systemic problems in meeting the recordkeeping and archival identity,
memory, accountability, redress and recovery needs of these key communities. The
devastating impact of both finding and not finding relevant information is high-
lighted, along with how systemic and structural difficulties in seeking access to vital
evidence can be re-traumatising. Using reflexivity and the Movement Action Plan as
an analytical tool, the case study reflects on the activist role archival research and
development projects can potentially play, using the Who Am I? and Trust and
Technology Projects as exemplars. The paper explores how an extended suite of
rights in records, stretching beyond discovery and access to appraisal, description
and disclosure, and linked to records continuum concepts of co-creation and mul-
tiple provenance, and the emergent concept of the participatory archive, might
support community self-determination in the context of human rights and social
justice agendas, with particular reference to the rights of the child. Additionally, the
paper explores a new concept of archival autonomy and its relationship to com-
munity self-determination. Archival autonomy is tentatively defined as the ability
for individuals and communities to participate in societal memory, with their own
voice, and to become participatory agents in recordkeeping and archiving for
&Joanne Evans
joanne.evans@monash.edu.au
1
Centre for Organisational and Social Informatics, Faculty of IT, Monash University,
Caulfield East 3145, Australia
2
eScholarship Research Centre, The University of Melbourne, Parkville 3010, Australia
123
Arch Sci (2015) 15:337–368
DOI 10.1007/s10502-015-9244-6
identity, memory and accountability purposes. The achievement of archival au-
tonomy is identified as a grand societal challenge, with the need for archival ac-
tivism to become an integral part of social movements on a local and global scale.
The paper concludes with a proposed National Summit on the Archive and the
Rights of the Child, envisaged as a vehicle for archival advocacy and activism
leading to transformative action to address social justice and human rights agendas
in Australia.
Keywords Archival activism Archival autonomy Participatory archives
Human rights
Introduction
Page after page…that [file] there reminded me that I was once upon a time
society’s reject…it reminded me of all the loneliness, of all the horror and
shame that I carried with me my whole life (O’Neill et al. 2012, p. 30).
These are the words of Vlad Selakovic, who was a Victorian state ward as a
child. Like the stories told in Australia’s Royal Commission into Institutional
Responses to Child Sexual Abuse (2014b), they are confronting and challenging, not
least for the archival and recordkeeping community. At the Commission’s public
hearings, testimonies have told of the fundamental betrayal of children by people in
positions of trust and authority, along with how recordkeeping has not played its
part as an instrument of accountability in supporting preventative measures, early
detection and reporting of abuse, and facilitating action against perpetrators.
Instead, poor recordkeeping, and consequent significant gaps in the archival record,
have contributed to inaction and cover ups (Crittenden 2013). Not finding any
relevant records about ‘‘care’’ experiences can have devastating consequences on
care leavers (a term used in Australia to describe people who experience out-of-
home ‘‘care’’ as children, ‘‘Care Leaver’’ 2011). Moreover the lack of uniform,
cross-jurisdictional, cross-sectoral access frameworks has resulted in a multitude of
barriers to discovering, accessing and interpreting those records that have survived.
Navigating a seemingly endless array of systems and processes across different
jurisdictions and organisations can be troubling, distressing and re-traumatising.
Australian archival systems are denying individuals access to records that may help
to address questions of: ‘‘who am I’’, ‘‘why did what happen to me happen’’, ‘‘where
is the evidence of my abuse’’, and ‘‘how can I tell my side of the story’’? (CLAN
2011).
Unfortunately, reports of systemic problems with archival and recordkeeping
systems in these situations are not new. A succession of inquiries into Australian
communities facing identity, memory and accountability crises over the past two
decades—the Stolen Generations, Former Child Migrants, Forgotten Australians
and Forced Adoptions communities (as defined and described in the ‘‘Appendix’’)—
have called for better archival and recordkeeping systems and improved access
regimes. A number of inquiries and truth commissions in other countries, including
338 Arch Sci (2015) 15:337–368
123
Ireland, the UK, Sweden, Canada, Norway, Iceland, Denmark, Germany and South
Africa, have also come to similar conclusions (Sko
¨ld et al. 2012). All have found
that improved access to records is paramount to the emotional, medical and
psychological health, financial security and right to legal restitution of impacted
communities. They also all highlight poor recordkeeping, inconsistent archival
practices, and fragmented discovery and access systems for those records that do
manage to survive.
These inquiries into state controlled childhood dislocation are part of local,
national and international social movements, driven in part by tireless and tenacious
campaigning by activist and advocacy communities to have past injustices
recognised and redressed, along with building better and fairer frameworks for
the future. Snow, Soule and Kriesi (2003) offer a broad and inclusive definition of
social movements as:
collectivities acting with some degree of organisation and continuity outside
of institutional or organisational channels for the purpose of challenging or
defending extant authority, whether it is institutionally or culturally based, in
the group, organisation, society, culture, or world order of which they are a
part (p. 11).
As Bill Moyer, a prominent US activist notes, social movements occur over years
and decades and involve co-ordinated activities to alert, educate and mobilise in
order to ‘‘challenge the powerholders and the whole society to redress social
problems or grievances and restore critical social values’’ (Moyer 1987), with
activists engaging in ‘‘vigorous campaigning to bring about political or social
change’’ (‘‘Activism’’ 2014), for the transfer and more equitable redistribution of
power (Moser 2007).
A burgeoning literature has discussed how archiving is inherently intertwined
with activism and power (Caswell 2014; Duff et al. 2013; Flinn et al. 2009; Harris
2011; Wakimoto et al. 2013). This stems from recognising that not only are records
and archives instruments of power, but so too are our archival frameworks,
1
processes and systems (Cook and Schwartz 2002). The way archival and
recordkeeping professionals appraise, document and provide access to records
always involves a level of activism against or support for the power structures built
into existing archival infrastructures (Harris 2011). This has led to growing
community and participatory archival movements (Eveleigh 2012; Flinn 2010;
Flinn et al. 2009; Huvila 2008; Shilton and Srinivasan 2007) and increased
questioning of traditional archival principles and practices which privilege
‘‘administrative and juridical significance’’ over ‘‘emotional, religious, symbolic
and cultural values’’ (Cook 2013, p. 115). These tensions are also echoed in
literature on the role that records play in human rights and social justice agendas,
particularly on whether traditional archival infrastructures can support healing and
reconciliation (Caswell 2010; Ketelaar 2002;Ko
¨rmendy 2007; McKemmish et al.
2012).
1
Archival frameworks are the law, policies, cultural and ethical mores, archival theories and models
which govern and structure archival processes and systems.
Arch Sci (2015) 15:337–368 339
123
This paper uses a case study of the recordkeeping and archival requirements of
members of the Stolen Generations, Former Child Migrants, Forgotten Australians
and Forced Adoption communities who experienced out-of-home ‘‘care’’ in
Australian orphanages and children’s homes to explore the need for archival
activism in support of human rights and social justice agendas. Framed by critical
theory, we first discuss the systemic failings of existing recordkeeping and archival
infrastructure to help address identity, memory, accountability, redress and recovery
needs for these communities. Using reflexivity and Moyer’s Movement Action Plan
(MAP) (Moyer et al. 2001) as an analytical tool, we then examine the activist role
archival research and development projects might play.
To address the systemic recordkeeping and archival failings raised by advocates
in the case study communities, and reinforced through our analysis and reflections,
we explore how an extended suite of rights in records, beyond discovery and access
to appraisal, description and disclosure, might support community self-determina-
tion in the context of human rights and social justice agendas, with particular
reference to the rights of the child. We define these broadly to mean rights of
individuals and communities in current and historic records including ownership,
privacy and access rights, as well as rights to participate in decision-making about
records appraisal (what to make and keep), metadata and description schemes, and
archival policy making, as well as rights of disclosure and amendment (Gilliland
and McKemmish 2014,2015). The relevance of continuum concepts of co-creation
and multiple provenance, the emergent concept of the participatory archive, and
emerging literature on archival rights are also discussed. We conclude with a
proposed National Summit on the Archive and the Rights of the Child as a vehicle
for archival advocacy and activism leading to transformative action to address
related social justice and human rights agendas in Australia. We outline the
objectives and hoped-for outcomes of the Summit, and posit that to meet the grand
societal challenge of archival autonomy for communities, archival activism needs to
become an integral part of social movements on local and global scales.
Critical research approach
Critical theory is now widely accepted as a third research paradigm in the
information disciplines alongside positivism and interpretivism. Cecez-Kecmanovic
and Kennan (2013) explore the meta-assumptions of the three paradigms, while
Gilliland and McKemmish (2013) have explored how critical theory is being
increasingly embraced in archival and recordkeeping research. Critical research
moves beyond explanation to a moral and ethical critique of the design,
development, implementation and impacts of information and communication
technologies. It is motivated by a desire to engender social, political and
technological transformations to overcome disadvantage, exploitation, disempow-
erment, domination and disenfranchisement (Myers and Klein 2011). Critical
research aims to address significant social issues through robust and rigorous
challenging of status quos in order to reveal ‘‘deep-seated, structural contradictions
340 Arch Sci (2015) 15:337–368
123
within social systems’’ and to progress their transformation (Orlikowski and
Baroudi 1991,p.6).
Critical research brings context(s) into the research frame, the myriad layers of
social constructs implicitly and explicitly impinging on the frameworks, processes
and systems we use for thinking and doing. Systemic failings of archival and
recordkeeping systems point to ingrained issues with local and global frameworks
and infrastructure, hence a critical research approach is a way to tackle this
‘‘embeddedness’’, allowing for the questioning of embodied values and power
differentials. In addition, in moving beyond insight and critique to transformative
outcomes, a critical approach has the potential to enrich interventionist method-
ologies like action and design science research (Myers and Klein 2011).
This exploration of archival activism, archival autonomy and the transformative
role they could potentially play in pursuit of human rights and social justice agendas
is centred on a case study of the unmet recordkeeping and archival needs of those
members of the Stolen Generations, Former Child Migrants, Forgotten Australians
and Forced Adoption communities who experienced out-of-home ‘‘care’’ in
Australian orphanages and children’s homes. Here the concept of community is
fluid and highly contextualised, used to refer broadly to groups which form around
shared beliefs, values, experiences, and interests and who come to have a shared
sense of identity. According to Delanty (2003, p. 189) communities may have
social, cultural, political, economic, professional, religious, class, gender, sexual
orientation, racial, familial or geographical dimensions, hence encompassing a
multiplicity of relationships. Moreover Ketelaar has depicted every community as a
community of memory wherein collective identity is linked to a community
recognising itself
through its memory of a common past …To be a community, family, a
religious community, a profession involves an embeddedness in its past and,
consequently, in the memory texts [in any form, written, oral, as well as
physical] through which that past is mediated (Ketelaar 2005, p. 44).
This characteristic of community identity is particularly relevant to the case study
communities as they have formed around shared experiences of childhood
dislocation, displacement and often deprivation, mistreatment and abuse, with
lifetime reverberations and repercussions. Details are provided in the Appendix of
the ways in which each of these communities define and describe themselves, and of
associated advocacy and service organisations. These distinct communities of
memory all share pressing concerns regarding control of, and access to, records
which document their experiences.
In this paper, interconnected threads of investigation contribute to the develop-
ment of a rich description of our case study (Yin 2009). Using Alvessoon and
Deetz’s (2000) framework for critical research, we seek to incorporate three
elements (or moments)—insight, critique and transformative redefinition—into our
investigation. Insight and critique are developed from two perspectives. Under-
standing of the ways in which current archival and recordkeeping frameworks and
infrastructure fail to meet community and societal needs is developed through
analysis of reports and responses to the numerous inquiries, alongside reviewing
Arch Sci (2015) 15:337–368 341
123
relevant literature regarding access, rights, activism and participation in archival
and recordkeeping processes and systems. We then couple this with reflexive,
insider, accounts of two key participatory action research projects in support of the
memory, identity and accountability needs of Indigenous and Forgotten Australian
communities with particular reference to members of these communities who were
removed from their families and experienced out-of-home ‘‘care’’. Reflexivity
brings scrutiny of archival research practice to the fore (White and Gilliland 2010),
and through these immersive accounts the impacts these research collaborations
have had on awareness of the need for archival activism as well as growing
understanding of its nature are examined.
Critique is further facilitated through the use of Moyer’s MAP to identify the
extent of, and current limitations on, the activist role of such research and
development projects in broader social justice and human rights movements. The
MAP model was developed as an analytical tool for guiding, organising and
evaluating social movements (Moyer et al. 2001). As a guiding framework, MAP
recognises that activism often requires long campaigning and the ability to adjust
strategy and tactics in the face of setbacks and knockbacks, to make and seize
opportunities, and to avoid common pitfalls (Moyer 1987). Another key aim of the
MAP model is to enable activists working at the local/grassroots level to see the
impact of their actions at national and/or international levels. The many sub-goals
and sub-movements within a larger social movement, all at their own MAP stage,
implementing relevant strategy and tactics to achieve their particular goals can be
recursively represented. While particular sub-goals may differ, in a larger and
transformative social movement the sub-movements are united in the promotion of
the same paradigm shift.
The MAP model, as illustrated in Fig. 1, features eight stages that build
momentum towards successful social change. Evidence gathering and research
activities form a critical part of the initial Stages 1–4, characterised by identification
of injustice, growing recognition and support of the issue, and inclusion of the
problem on the social agenda. Stage 5 recognises inevitable fluctuations in
momentum, while in Stages 6–7 majority public opinion supports paradigmatic
change, with power holders responding with reforms in laws, policies and systems.
In Stage 8, the struggle to achieve a paradigm shift continues, dealing with
backlashes, and extending and/or refining the movement to address unmet
challenges. In these latter stages, evidence gathering and research are critical to
successful reform and transformative change.
The strengths of the MAP model for archives lie in its privileging of
relationships. It does not attempt to be predictive or all-encompassing. Instead,
‘‘it offers a ‘‘participatory’’ view of movement dynamics, where ‘‘success’’
(however defined by the movement) is never guaranteed’’ (Moser 2007, p. 129).
In much the same way, archival scholars have viewed records as ‘‘always in a
process of becoming’’, partial, and dependent on context and relationships for their
meaning (McKemmish 1994). Using the MAP model as a tool for critical analysis
lays the foundation for transformative redefinition of the social problem, acknowl-
edged as the most difficult element of critical research. It involves:
342 Arch Sci (2015) 15:337–368
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the opening up of a new ways of engaging the social world—ways marked by
critical insight and added ethical considerations and inspiration for new forms
of practice in which certain biases, blinkers, constraints and frozen orienta-
tions are struggled with in a more enlightened and reflective manner, and more
social criteria for responsibility are taken into account (Alvessoon and Deetz
2000, p. 151).
For our study, we look to planned agendas for archival advocacy and activism with
reconceptualisation of rights in records as the catalyst for transformation of archival
and recordkeeping frameworks and infrastructure to an inclusive and participatory
paradigm that better supports the archival autonomy of communities.
Meeting the identity, memory and accountability needs of communities
In this section, we present a case study relating to members of the Stolen
Generations, Former Child Migrants, Forgotten Australians and Forced Adoption
communities who experienced out-of-home ‘‘care’’ in Australian orphanages and
children’s homes. We describe systemic problems associated with meeting their
current recordkeeping and archival-related identity, memory, accountability and
redress needs. We also make the case for archival advocacy and activism playing an
essential role in social movements pursuing human rights and social justice agendas.
Fig. 1 Movement Action Plan Model (Moyer et al. 2001, pp. 44–45) (reprinted with permission from
New Society Publishers)
Arch Sci (2015) 15:337–368 343
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For many years, and particularly over the past two decades, individually and
collectively, the case study communities have been campaigning for social, political
and organisational change, mobilising public opinion to challenge the institutional
structures which have caused and continue to inflict on-going disadvantage and
discrimination (Moyer et al. 2001; Snow et al. 2003). Their activism has been a
major impetus for the instigation of a number of government and other inquiries, the
issuing of formal apologies by Australian federal and state governments, as well as
other institutions and organisations, and most recently the establishment of the 2014
Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. Although the
case study communities have successfully campaigned for political recognition, and
achieved success with the apologies and subsequently funded initiatives, their
struggle continues. Many of the recommendations from the various inquiries remain
unimplemented, particularly those requiring substantive law reform and reparations
(O’Neill 2012).
The Appendix provides an overview of the Federal Government inquiries and
apologies relating to the case study communities highlighting key statements and
findings regarding recordkeeping and archives. While the apologies address notable
societal failures, they also draw attention to shortcomings in archival and
recordkeeping systems and access regimes. Inquiry recommendations, testimony
from members of the communities and related research findings highlight the need
for access to trustworthy, reliable information to support the search for identity and
memories, to find family members and to provide evidence for accountability
purposes in seeking redress and compensation, asserting rights and pursuing action
against perpetrators of abuse and the institutions that sheltered them. They also
point to a successive failure to implement recordkeeping and archival reforms.
Forgotten Australian community
In Australia, survivors of the estimated 500,000 children who found themselves in
institutional or other out-of-home ‘‘care’’ throughout the Twentieth Century have
come to be known as Forgotten Australians (Alliance for Forgotten Australians
2011). Taking this self-identified community as an example, a 2010 survey by Care
Leavers Australia Network (CLAN) provides a snapshot of the situation faced by
care leavers when looking for records about their time in orphanages, children’s
homes, foster care and other institutions (CLAN 2011). Only 60 % who had sought
access to records about their time in ‘‘care’’ received any, with 42 % having to wait
longer than 3 months, more than double or triple the response times mandated in
state based access regulations (CLAN 2011, p. 39). Survey comments also voiced
frustration and dissatisfaction with access processes. Survey respondents spoke of
being shunted from agency to agency, told that there were no records, or refused
access to records relating to their time in ‘‘care’’ because of ‘‘privacy’’. On receiving
records many commented on their anger, disappointment and shock at what they did
and did not contain (CLAN 2011, pp. 40–41). The paucity of information, the
missing information, the withheld information, the cryptic codes and abbreviations,
the errors, the tone and language were all causes of distress and concern; perhaps
most effectively summed up by the statement: ‘‘The records were not about me’’
344 Arch Sci (2015) 15:337–368
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(CLAN 2011, pp. 41–42). A significant number also noted the impacts absences or
presences of records have had throughout their life, contributing to ongoing
discrimination and disadvantage (CLAN 2011, pp. 41–42).
A 2012 investigation by the Victorian government Ombudsman into records
relating to state wards held by the Department of Human Services (DHS) illustrates
the parlous state of recordkeeping and archival management practices (Victorian
Ombudsman 2012). The report’s revelations are damning, showing DHS’s inability
to cope with the size, scope and nature of the extant records and provide adequate
access services. With ‘‘the majority of these records …in large part uninspected,
unindexed and unscanned …the department cannot ever be confident that it has
located all records relating to an individual ward from within its archives’’
(Victorian Ombudsman 2012, pp. 3–4). Care leavers have also received differing
responses on re-submitting access requests a second or third time, severely
undermining their faith in recordkeeping and archival processes. The Ombudsman’s
report and the CLAN survey illustrate an unfortunate, but not uncommon,
combination of poor original recordkeeping, poor subsequent records management,
and poor archival documentation and control.
While funding flowing from the 2009 Federal parliamentary apology to the
Forgotten Australians has led to incremental improvements with documentation and
indexing projects undertaken within individual institutions and the development of
the Find and Connect Web Resource, the capacity to substantially reform
recordkeeping and archival systems and transform services remains problematic.
Findings from the 2008–2012 ARC Linkage Project, Who Am I? The Archive as
Central to Quality Practice for Current And Past Care Leavers (Forgotten
Australians), have highlighted key recordkeeping and archival dilemmas from the
perspective of care leavers, social welfare workers, archival and recordkeeping
professionals, and social historians (McCarthy et al. 2012). Collectively, these
findings point to the systemic nature of the problem, with the issues of archival
access compounded by poorly resourced, configured and supported recordkeeping
practices in the agencies and organisations delivering out-of-home ‘‘care’’ services
today. They also note increasing awareness of the problems, and a growing desire
across professional communities, community service organisations and government
agencies to do better, particularly to ensure future care leavers do not end up in the
current bureaucratic binds relating to access to records later in life.
The same kinds of conclusions about recordkeeping and archival failures have
been reached in international inquiries, along with a lack of substantive progress to
address them. A key example is Recommendation 19 from Ireland’s 2009 Ryan
Report (Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse 2009). The recommendation called
for the maintenance of the ‘‘the full personal records of children in care’’, with a
subsequent action item in one of the government implementation plans to develop
‘‘a National Archive managed professionally for the records of all children in care’’
(Office of the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs 2009). Reported progress on
this has unfortunately been minimal (Ryan Report Monitoring Group 2012). While
the will to take action is present, there is not enough understanding of what action to
take in the face of all the situational complexities, particularly in sustaining such an
Arch Sci (2015) 15:337–368 345
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archive throughout a person’s lifespan, and potentially beyond. It is an archival
challenge of the highest order.
Systemic failings of recordkeeping and archival frameworks
and infrastructure
The challenges faced by members of the Forgotten Australians community in
accessing their records overlap with and mirror those of our other case study
communities—the Stolen Generations, Former Child Migrants and Forced Adop-
tions communities. Our analysis identifies the recordkeeping and archival problems
as systemic. The organisations and institutions holding and managing records
relating to these communities are spread across government, private and community
sectors. In Australia there are two strong parallel traditions, one relating to
government recordkeeping and archiving; the other to library-based manuscript
collections. In the community sector, recordkeeping and archival programs are
generally not well developed and are very poorly resourced. Records and archives
are managed in silos as there are no cross-jurisdictional, cross-sectoral, unifying
frameworks, nor uniform laws, policies or processes.
2
The traditional configuration
and focus of recordkeeping and archival services and systems on institutional voices
and needs also contribute to records relating to individuals and communities being
fragmented, dispersed, often unmanaged, invisible and inaccessible to those whose
lives and experiences they witness and evidence.
Despite the mounting evidence of poor documentation, recordkeeping and
archiving practices and the recommendations of successive inquiries relating to the
case study communities, we are not seeing major reform in recordkeeping practice
or archival frameworks to address these problems and stop them from recurring in
the future. While there have been some promising projects in national and state
archival institutions, these initiatives are constrained by the limitations of existing
archival and recordkeeping frameworks. These projects include the National Library
of Australia (2012)Forgotten Australians and Former Child Migrants Oral History
Project, the National Museum of Australia (2011) exhibition Inside: Life in
Children’s Homes and Institutions and the National Archives of Australia (2014)
Forced Adoptions History Project. All three of these projects provide a space for
people who experienced out-of-home ‘‘care’’ to tell their stories, and are focused on
increasing awareness and understanding as well as preserving the memory of such
experiences. The importance of this cannot be over stated. However, these projects
do not encompass (nor are they resourced for) an examination of the role of archival
and recordkeeping institutions, and the implications of their practices and policies
on the case study communities. This restricts such projects to documenting, and no
doubt impacting, the past and present, but having limited influence on future
recordkeeping and archival systems or practices.
2
Australia has federal, state and local government jurisdictions, plus government, corporate, NGO and
community sectors involved in child welfare and protections services.
346 Arch Sci (2015) 15:337–368
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The limitations of these individual projects highlight the lack of cross-
jurisdictional, cross-sectoral, and unifying archival and recordkeeping frameworks
and infrastructure in place to support:
•governance and accountability in the organisations and institutions responsible
for child protection, care and welfare,
•effective detection, reporting and investigation of cases of neglect and abuse to
enable appropriate and timely remedial action,
•preventative strategies in child care institutions to reduce the levels of current
and future abuse,
•current and future archival services that provide discoverable, accessible
evidence.
The findings of successive inquiries also raise profound questions about the rights
in records current recordkeeping and archival frameworks enshrine, privileging the
notion of singular records creators, and consequently denying agency to other
participants in the events records document. Extant recordkeeping and archival
practices and systems do not allow for the concept of multiple simultaneous
provenance (Hurley 2005a,b) and so result in siloed systems prone to dysfunction
and disconnects, and further bureaucratisation rather than community
empowerment.
The case for activism
Archival and recordkeeping systems are social constructions, man-made and
artificial, products of countless contextual contingencies. They have been designed
and shaped by a multitude of indivisible social and technical practices, which they
then, in turn, reflect and structure (Upward 1997). Our study points to the need for
far reaching and fundamental reform in archival and recordkeeping law, policy and
practice to facilitate the transformation of evidence and memory management
frameworks and infrastructure into a new dynamic, distributed, participatory
paradigm, capable of supporting multiple archival perspectives, more able to heal
rather than harm (Cook 2013). The need for frameworks and infrastructure which
better protect and respect citizen and human rights, as well as contributing to quality
of life takes calls for archival activism beyond just encouraging greater diversity in
archival collections or supporting the social justice work of others (Duff et al. 2013;
Flinn 2011; Wakimoto et al. 2013). Analysis of the systemic problems associated
with meeting the current recordkeeping and archival-related identity, memory, and
accountability needs of the case study communities illustrates an imperative for
archival advocacy and activism, with archival autonomy to support community and
individual self-determination as a major objective. Archival autonomy is here
defined as the ability for individuals and communities to participate in societal
memory, with their own voice, becoming participatory agents in recordkeeping and
archiving for identity, memory and accountability purposes. In the sections that
follow, we explore this notion of archival autonomy as a grand societal challenge
with reference to the need for archival activism to become an integral part of social
Arch Sci (2015) 15:337–368 347
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movements on local and global scales, challenging the power structures governing
memory management frameworks. We begin with reflections on the activist role
that archival research and development projects can potentially play.
Activism in archival research and development
The Trust and Technology Project (2004–2008)
The Trust and Technology Project, funded by the Australian Research Council
(ARC) Linkage Project scheme, involved a multidisciplinary team made up of
Indigenous and non-Indigenous researchers working in partnership with Indigenous
communities, the Public Record Office Victoria, the Koorie Heritage Trust, the
Koorie Records Taskforce and the Indigenous Special Interest Group of the
Australian Society of Archivists. Although it focussed broadly on the needs of
Indigenous communities in Victoria, it acknowledged that within these communities
the recordkeeping and archival needs of the Stolen Generations, the estimated
50,000 Indigenous children forcibly removed from their families from 1909 to 1969
under policies aimed at the assimilation of ‘‘half-caste’’ children into white society
and ‘‘breeding out’’ Aboriginality, are particularly pressing. Many of these children
experienced out-of-home ‘‘care’’ in orphanages and children’s homes and so are
also part of the Forgotten Australian community. A hoped-for outcome from the
Trust and Technology Project was that its findings would underpin the development
of archival frameworks, strategies and tools driven by the needs of Indigenous
communities and individuals, and the building of relationships of trust between the
archival community (encompassing archival institutions, organisational record-
keeping programs, the profession and individual recordkeeping professionals/
archivists) and Indigenous communities.
In 2011, reflecting on the transformative experience of being involved in the
Project, Sue McKemmish (archival researcher), Lynette Russell (historian) and
Shannon Faulkhead (Indigenous studies researcher), explained how trust was
developed ‘‘through a consistent and sincere effort to consult, co-operate and
collaborate with Indigenous communities’’ (McKemmish et al. 2011a, p. 221). From
these reflections came understanding of the need to engage in what was dubbed
‘‘reconciling research’’, to contribute to a broader endeavour aimed at the
decolonisation of archives. Embarking on a collaborative, co-creative journey with
members of the academy, Indigenous communities and the archival sector led to the
recognition that:
the Indigenous community is a crucial and inalienable part of the decision-
making process with regard to how their oral traditions and memories should
be handled, the records held about them by government and other non-
Indigenous archives, and the interrelationship between them (McKemmish
et al. 2011a, p. 221).
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Reconciling research, as it evolved during the Trust and Technology Project,
involves a commitment to decolonising methodologies and cultural pluralism, and
engages all partners in the research from conception to dissemination:
Reconciling research as it evolved during the Trust and Technology Project
was guided by a research philosophy that considers and incorporates the
research design and methods of more than one cultural paradigm. It involves a
respectful and carefully negotiated partnership between researchers and
community; the sharing of control; allowing all voices to contribute to the
overall outcomes; self-reflectivity; open discussion of methods and issues
specific to the research being undertaken; and consideration of the emotional
and physical wellbeing of all participants, including all members of the
research team (McKemmish et al. 2011a, p. 220).
Major outcomes of the Trust and Technology Project included a Statement of
Principles relating to Australian Indigenous Knowledge and the Archives (Trust and
Technology Project 2009c), a Position Statement on Human Rights, Indigenous
Communities in Australia and the Archives (McKemmish et al. 2011b; Trust and
Technology Project 2009a) and an Action Agenda for Archival Reconciliation
(McKemmish et al. 2011a; Trust and Technology Project 2009b). The Statement of
Principles, designed to be a guide for future archival practice, research and
education, focuses on records of Indigenous peoples created by non-Indigenous
organisations, and held in mainstream archival institutions. The Human Rights
Position Statement, based on an analysis of the international Indigenous human
rights conventions, human rights instruments and relevant Australian law by Livia
Iacovino and Eric Ketelaar, spells out the implications for archival law, policy and
practice of the human right of self-determination, encompassing the exercise of
cultural rights as human rights (Iacovino 2010). This statement specifies actions that
archival institutions and the archival profession would need to take to address
Indigenous human rights, and the implementation of the provisions of the Joinet-
Orentlicher Principles (UN Commission on Human Rights 2005) relating to the
right to know the truth and the right of reply (McKemmish et al. 2010).
Just as in reconciling research, the integral involvement of Indigenous people as
partners with the archival community is seen as critical to implementing the Action
Agenda. A partnership between the Indigenous and archival communities is
envisaged to address the priority areas of recovery and re-integration of Indigenous
knowledge and history from non-Indigenous archival sources, acknowledging the
integral relationship between oral knowledge, community records and institutional
records and developing frameworks for the exercise of Indigenous rights in records.
Specifically the Action Agenda references the negotiation of appraisal, metadata,
disclosure, and access policies, protocols and strategies based on an extended suite
of rights in records relating to Indigenous peoples, their knowledge and culture,
applicable wherever those records are held. It also envisages ‘‘a virtual national
archival network that identifies, integrates, and provides for appropriate manage-
ment and access to information about all archival records relating to Indigenous
knowledge and history’’ (McKemmish et al. 2011a, p. 234). The Action Agenda
also addresses inclusive archival education, for example the development of
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culturally sensitive curriculum and support for scholarship and programs for
Indigenous students, and wider engagement in reconciling research.
At the conclusion of the research, it was hoped that the rich understandings and
findings of the Project would contribute to the reform of archival laws, policies and
practices, and ultimately lead to a paradigm shift that would enable Indigenous
communities to become participatory agents in recordkeeping and archiving. This in
turn would promote the healing of family and community ties and subsequently
encourage the regeneration of community life and culture, thus making an important
contribution to national efforts of reconciliation.
The archival research and education components of the Action Agenda are being
progressed locally and globally, through the engagement of the international
archival academic community in the development of archival research agendas
relating to grand societal challenges at the Archival Education and Research
Institute (AERI) (Gilliland and McKemmish 2012), and the work of AERI’s
Pluralising the Archival Curriculum Group (Pluralizing the Archival Curriculum
Group 2011). Those directly involved in the Trust and Technology Project continue
to evolve reconciling research approaches, working in participatory, partnership
projects and contributing to the archival literature on archival research methodolo-
gies which guides research training in doctoral and master’s research programs.
However, the hoped-for outcome of reforming, or even transforming, policy and
practice has not as yet gained much traction with archival institutions or the
profession, let alone the wider community. Indeed the initial response of the
Australian Society of Archivists (ASA) to the Statement of Principles and the
Position Statement on Indigenous Human Rights and the Archives was hostile.
Although there has since been a change of leadership and direction in the ASA, no
priority has yet been given to addressing them.
Further reflection using the MAP model leads to the conclusion that the findings
of a project like Trust and Technology may well only fulfil their potential to
contribute to the broader social movements relating to Indigenous human rights,
social justice and reconciliation within a larger context of action aimed at achieving
archival autonomy for individuals and communities. This requires archival activism
on a much grander scale than we have yet seen.
The Who Am I? Project (2008–2012)
The Who Am I? Project, also funded by the ARC Linkage Project scheme, brought
together social welfare, archival and historical researchers, with care providers and
advocacy organisations to investigate the role played by archiving and recordkeep-
ing practices in the construction of identity for people who experienced out-of-home
‘‘care’’ as children. As an interdisciplinary research response to the Bringing them
Home,Lost Innocents and Forgotten Australian reports (see ‘‘Appendix’’) the
research project explored issues of creating, storing and accessing records using
research practices and tools from the fields of social work, history and archival
studies. Adopting an action research approach, the project was comprised of a series
of iterative workshops over a 3-year period. Using ‘‘The Knowledge Diamond’’,
devised by Cathy Humphreys, each workshop emphasised an exchange of ideas
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between key stakeholder perspectives, namely Research Evidence, Service User/
Consumer Experience, Policy Perspectives and Practitioner Wisdom (Downing
et al. 2013). Each workshop involved representatives from all stakeholder
communities and always started with the voice of a care leaver. This simple act
was found to have a profound effect on participants, ultimately leading to a sense of
coherence among these communities not experienced before. As Frank Golding, a
care leaver, noted while addressing the final meeting of the project, perhaps the
most important outcome was the coherence it brought to what had been a fractured
group.
One key action research tool, instrument of collaboration, and important
outcome, was the development of the Pathways: Historical Resources for people
who experienced out of home ‘‘care’’ in Victoria web resource. By utilising existing
archival knowledge mapping technology based on open network informatics
derived from archival standards, the project’s archivists and historians were able to
work with other stakeholders to develop a resource that attempted to decode existing
archival description and provide a framework that was both meaningful and useful
to care leavers (McCarthy and Evans 2012). The rapid development of this resource
was a revelation to the social workers, policy makers and care leavers involved.
Pathways was made available publicly online within the first year of the project and
became the place where language was rehearsed, concepts tackled, new knowledge
shared, and new ways of thinking as a community emerged. The web resource only
worked with information already in the public domain; it was not a system for
delivering records directly to record seekers but a means by which those record
seekers could discover and then negotiate access to relevant records, as well as
providing a contextual framework to help in decoding and interpreting them.
Pathways also incorporated published materials, including publishable photographs,
systematically interconnecting them with relevant entries about children’s homes
and other institutions and their surviving records.
The Federal Government apology in 2009 to Forgotten Australians and Former
Child Migrants provided a timely opportunity to reimagine the Victorian experience
at a national level. This was realised in the Find and Connect Web Resource Project
which commenced in May 2011. As a core component of a suite of services and
projects for Forgotten Australian and Former Child Migrants, the aim was to
develop a single online access point to better enable care leavers to discover
information about the history of out-of-home care and locate records held by past
care providers and government agencies (FaHCSIA 2012). Pathways was used as
the model for this national project along with adopting the action research approach
from the Who am I? Project as the methodology for its development. Workshops
were again crucial in bringing together stakeholders, and facilitating faith, goodwill
and trust amongst them. Some truly remarkable and unexpected outcomes were
achieved. Perhaps the story of the care leaver in South Australia who with minimal
writing skills learned to work with digital communication technologies and
ultimately led the local community in the establishment of a memorial to children
who died in custody is amongst one of the most heart-warming. However, as the
initial development phase of the Find and Connect Web Resource Project
concludes, there remains a strong sense that the transformational work has only
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just begun and of the need to keep building on achievements lest the systemic
failures of the past overwhelm this community so desperately seeking change.
Critical reflection on the Who Am I? and Trust and Technology Projects
Both Who Am I? and Trust and Technology are examples of activist research and
development projects informed by continuum thinking. Despite successful out-
comes, their achievements have also been limited by traditional archival and
research paradigms. The projects were designed to contribute to wider social
movements and, although they engage with different communities, some significant
parallels and conclusions can be drawn. Both projects were explicitly participatory.
This meant that the agency, and hence autonomy, of all participants, including those
whom the mainstream paradigms casts in the role of ‘‘record subjects’’ or ‘‘research
subjects’’ were respected throughout all stages of the projects. Denial of autonomy
has been identified as a key component in objectification (Papadaki 2012).
In terms of archival autonomy, denial of agency in records manifests itself as a
silencing of individual and community voices, rendering those represented in
records as captives of the archives (Fourmile 1989). Recognising that records have
multiple creators and provenance (Hurley 2005a,b), and calling for those
documented in records to be documented as co-creators and sources of provenance
with agency, challenges the current archival paradigm. Concepts of communities of
records and communities of memory and associated ideas about shared ownership,
negotiated rights and obligations in records and joint heritage (Bastian 2003;
Ketelaar 2005) come into play when the multiplicity of agency in records is
recognised. The ‘‘Knowledge Diamond’’, used as a key methodology in the Who
Am I? Project, along with the reconciling research approaches used by the Trust and
Technology Project, were used to enact recognition of co-creation and multiple
provenances. This had an empowering effect on participants including academics,
practitioners and community members.
Both projects where able to provide space for what Todorov (1996) describes as
teleological and intersubjective actions with a moral bent. Teleological actions are
those which are judged by their end result, and are therefore goal orientated. This
end result may be the meeting of certain predefined goals, or the perceived value or
merit of the outcome of a set of actions. Intersubjective actions focus on
communication, understanding and relationships. Although intersubjective actions
are considered by Todorov to be the ‘‘moral’’ actions, they always co-exist with
teleological actions. Participatory research aimed at contributing to the emergence
of participatory archival practice can potentially enable both teleological and
intersubjective actions. The processes of the Who Am I? and Trust and Technology
Projects were very intersubjective, based on understanding the needs of others and
selves, engaging, giving voice and empowering. As Gilliland and McKemmish
state, ‘‘the process is as important as the ends’’ (Gilliland and McKemmish 2014,
p. 6).
The outcome of the two projects, the teleological ‘‘objects’’, the web resources
and reports, can be used as points of reference, as exemplary memory stores to guide
ethical and moral action into the future, and as evidence for wider societal justice
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action beyond the particular story of the individual participants. Participatory
research and the participatory archive have a unique transformative power in this
regard, to serve as both process and object, to empower individuals and groups.
Both the Trust and Technology and Who Am I? Projects were in part motivated by
human rights and social justice agendas, respecting and encouraging the agency of
community participants in the development and design of the archival solutions they
wanted and needed. In the context of genuine and open engagement between all
stakeholders and of enabling participation by all partners, archival researchers and
archivists could not remain neutral, but had to become activists. In the Who Am I?
Project, the Jenkinsonian myth of neutrality was dramatically shattered when the
professionals charged with managing the records of out-of-home care admitted to
the disastrous impacts the current system of recordkeeping has had on the people
whose care experiences are documented in the records. It was openly recognised
that inaction would simply perpetuate harm and inequality (Cook and Schwartz
2002).
However, both projects were limited by the context within which they found
themselves, namely recordkeeping and archival frameworks at odds with their
values and needs. To achieve systemic change, the continuum approach, which
seeks to implement the concepts of co-creation and multiple provenance (McKem-
mish et al. 2005) based on principles of participatory archiving, needs to be part of
broader archival activism movements. Using the MAP model, the projects could be
understood as largely operating in Stages 1 and 2 (Moyer et al. 2001). Specific
groups of archival researchers, along with partners in allied professions and in
affected communities, are agitating for change in archival practice and process due
to perceived, and arguably real, problems with the current archival paradigm. The
‘‘Knowledge Diamond’’ is potentially a very useful tool in mobilising people during
the early stages, and pushing movements towards the later stages. In the Who Am I?
Project, as well as ensuring that the voice of care leavers was paramount in
everyone’s minds, it also created the opportunity (as yet largely unrealised) for
power holders such as archival policy makers to become actively engaged and
involved in the struggle. In terms of the MAP model, involvement of power holders
in the advocacy process marks increased momentum and improved chances of
success. It also plays a part in the development of a cohesive front, arguably far
more influential than isolated individuals agitating for change.
The social movement to decolonise the archive, encompassing archival
functionality and professional recordkeeping practice, and giving agency through
an extended suite of rights in records to all participants, is in the early stages
identified in the MAP model (Stages 1 and 2). Moving into Stage 3 would involve
gaining the support of existing institutions and networks. A Stage 4-type trigger
point for moving forward towards reform and eventual transformation would require
widespread support from the mainstream archival community and its key
constituencies, as well as the activist communities driving the broader social
justice movements, and associated power holders, such as policy makers and
resource allocators. Laying the foundation for moving beyond Stage 4 requires
partnerships between stakeholder and archival communities to pluralise archival
functionality and professional recordkeeping practice. Reform of legal, policy and
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professional frameworks to begin to accommodate such pluralisation could only be
achieved by escalating the issues to a political agenda. It would also be dependent
on the relevant power holders becoming convinced that they have no choice but to
support reform of policy and practice. Moving beyond reforms to transformative
action, as described in Stage 8 of the MAP Model, requires fundamental shifts in
current mainstream thinking. For example in relation to Trust and Technology’s
ultimate goals, decolonising the archive would first require widespread
acknowledgement of the continuing impacts of colonialism and post-colonial
recordkeeping and archival structures; strategies and tactics on Indigenous
communities; recognition that Indigenous communities rely on sources of
knowledge; evidence paradigms and methods of transmission that differ in
some significant respects from those of the wider community; and acceptance
of differing constructs of ownership of records, privacy, access, and what
constitutes secret and sacred material in different space-times (Upward et al.
2011, p. 218).
Both projects potentially demonstrate the imperative to move beyond traditional
archival values and redefine the measures by which the success of the archive is
judged. Replicating Hannah Arendt’s test for philosophy would be relevant here,
judging success not by its ‘‘vapors of cleverness’’, but its capacity to improve the
human condition’’ (Power 2004, p. ix):
Process rather than product, becoming rather than being, dynamic rather than
static, context rather than text, reflecting time and place rather than universal
absolutes—these have become the postmodern watchwords for analysing and
understanding science, society, organisations, and business activity among
others. They should likewise become the watchwords for archival science in
the new century, and thus the foundation for a new conceptual paradigm for
the profession (Cook 2001, p. 24).
Towards a National Summit on the Archive and the Rights of the Child
Rights in records
The systemic failures described here are a far cry from the safeguarding of
individual and collective memory, the protection of citizens’ rights and the
enhancement of quality of life espoused in the Universal Declaration on Archives
(UNESCO 2011). The Declaration places an increased responsibility on the
archival and recordkeeping community to ensure that action lives up to the rhetoric.
It states that archives:
are authoritative sources of information underpinning accountable and
transparent administrative actions. They play an essential role in the
development of societies by safeguarding and contributing to individual and
community memory. Open access to archives enriches our knowledge of
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human society, promotes democracy, protects citizens’ rights and enhances
the quality of life (UNESCO 2011).
But how well do existing archival models and their access regimes support the needs
of the case study communities? Do these models deliver the pressing identity,
memory, accountability and redress needs of the victims of human rights abuses?
How well do they support reconciliation and recovery?
While the academic and professional discourse reflects increased sophistication
in understanding of the multiple, complex and often conflicting role of archives in
society (Cook 2001; Hurley 2005a,b; Ketelaar 2005,2006; McKemmish and
Piggott 2013; Nesmith 2002), archival infrastructure continues to be representative
of, and configured around, traditional orthodoxies. Appraisal, description and access
models in particular have limited capacity to take account of rights in records other
than singular notions of creation, ownership and custody. Existing power
relationships are confirmed through traditional appraisal, description and access
practices rather than facilitating their ongoing contestation and negotiation, as well
as lacking mechanisms for assuring their own accountability and transparency
(Harris 2002; Schwartz and Cook 2002). Traditional archival processes and systems
have been designed for a different age: a different cultural, political and
technological paradigm. Radical transformation is required to allow for multiple
rights in records to be respected, acknowledged, represented and managed.
Gilliland and McKemmish (2014) advocate a re-conceptualisation of the archival
role in serving social justice, human rights, reconciliation and recovery agendas and
of the ‘‘participatory archive’’, arguing that ‘‘there is a moral and ethical imperative
for an archive that works in the interests of those who have been wronged’’.
Extending their work on archival description rights (Gilliland 2014) and Indigenous
rights in records (McKemmish et al. 2011a,b), they propose an extended suite of
rights in records and archives. Moving beyond the current focus on individual
archival access rights, the adoption of appraisal, description, access and disclosure
rights for individuals and communities are recommended, along with the
development of principles, policies, strategies and tools for managing appraisal
and description to support ‘‘multiple provenances, differentiated access, and the
exercise of mutual rights and responsibilities’’ (Gilliland and McKemmish 2014).
In Australia, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner,
Mick Gooda, speaking at a 2010 Archives and Indigenous Human Rights
Workshop, highlighted the 2007 UN Declaration on the Human Rights of
Indigenous Peoples (UN General Assembly 2007) as a ‘‘framework for asserting
the rights of Indigenous people to become active, participating agents in
recordkeeping and archiving practice relating to all records relating to them, rather
than the passive, disempowered subjects of records created and maintained by non-
Indigenous institutions and organisations’’ (McKemmish and Piggott 2013, p. 136).
This approach affords a useful way forward in other human rights and social justice
contexts. The notion of agency in records is re-defined, repositioning the subjects of
records and others involved in the events and actions documented as participatory
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agents with a suite of legal and moral rights and responsibilities (McKemmish et al.
2011b).
The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (United Nations 1990) is one of a
suite of conventions that support the 1947 UN Declaration of Human Rights. One of
its aims was to change views on the treatment of the child, through regarding
children as human beings with a distinct set of rights, not as passive objects of care
and charity. The Convention’s guiding principles include non-discrimination, acting
in the best interests of the child, and the right to life, survival and development. It
also emphasises the right of the child to participate in decision-making which
impacts on their lives, supported by adequate access to relevant information.
The records continuum concepts of co-creation, parallel and multiple simulta-
neous provenance (Hurley 2005a,b; McKemmish 2011) are particularly pertinent to
rights relating to participation and agency. Hurley has argued for the abandonment
of the traditional archival view of a singular creator who alone exercises rights in
the record.
By expanding the definition of record creators to include everyone who has
contributed to a record’s creative process or been directly affected by its
action, notions of co-creation and parallel or simultaneous multiple prove-
nance reposition ‘records subjects’ as ‘records agents’. They support a broader
spectrum of rights, responsibilities and obligations relating to the ownership,
management, accessibility, and privacy of records in and through time
(McKemmish and Piggott 2013, p. 137).
In current practice, the institutions and organisations that provide out-of-home
‘‘care’’ are recognised as the ‘‘singular record creator’’ with all of the rights in the
records, including ownership and decision-making powers relating to appraisal,
description and access policies and their implementation. There is no requirement in
current recordkeeping and archival frameworks, processes and systems to involve
records ‘‘subjects’’ in exploring appraisal, description and access needs or to include
them in related decision-making. Recognition of those formerly considered
‘‘subjects’’ of the records as co-creators, applying Hurley’s multiple or parallel
provenance construct, would involve granting and enacting a more extensive suite
of rights in their records. Co-creators would be engaged in decision-making about
appraisal, description and access both now, and into the future—a vision of active
rather than passive participation. Recognition of co-creation rights in records is thus
a necessary step towards archival autonomy.
Archival activism for archival autonomy
Our critical research has explored a new concept of archival autonomy and its
relationship to community self-determination. Defined as the ability for individuals
and communities to participate in societal memory, with their own voice, and to
become participatory agents in recordkeeping and archiving for identity, memory
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and accountability purposes, we also propose that the achievement of archival
autonomy extends beyond being a grand archival challenge, to being a grand
societal challenge.
What is clear from the various commissions and inquiries mentioned in this study
is how extant recordkeeping and archival infrastructure undermines the autonomy of
those whose lives and experiences they document and so contributes to their
objectification (Papadaki 2012). Our research engagement with the case study
communities, with other allied professionals, and with researchers from other
disciplines has resulted in a shared interest in and commitment to participatory
recordkeeping and archival frameworks and systems.
Trigger event: National Summit on the Archive and the Rights of the Child
In response to the systemic recordkeeping and archival issues raised in the reports,
by advocates in the case study communities, in the scholarly literature, and in our
research findings, a National Summit on the Archive and the Rights of the Child is
proposed for late 2015. This high level meeting is envisaged as a vehicle for
archival advocacy and activism leading to transformative action that will address
related social justice and human rights agendas in Australia. The Summit will
address the shared and diverse recordkeeping and archival needs of members of the
Stolen Generations, Forgotten Australians, Former Child Migrants and Forced
Adoptions communities who experienced out-of-home ‘‘care’’. Its overarching
objective is to support community action, advocacy and activism and the archival
autonomy of communities. To achieve this, the Summit aims to develop an action
agenda for archival and recordkeeping responses that would meet the needs of the
stakeholder communities, whether that be for
•uniform laws, policies and standards, solutions tailored to the specific needs of
particular communities,
•a more extensive suite of rights in records and/or
•support for a national network of community-based archives with community-
controlled nodes.
The Summit is being organised to address the need for transforming frameworks,
policies, systems and practice. It is to be driven by the key stakeholders—first and
foremost the communities themselves, and the groups and individuals that
champion, advocate for and serve them (including community service and advocacy
organisations, human rights bodies, and the legal firms that represent the
communities). Invitees will also include people we need to partner with and/or
influence—the law makers, resource allocators, policy makers, standard setters,
leaders of key government departments, organisations and institutions who provide
out-of-home care, the privacy and information watchdogs, auditors, heads of
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cultural institutions, communities of professional practice, politicians, media and
the general community.
Anticipated outcomes include:
•Decadal (i.e. 10 years) plan for collaborative action to address recordkeeping
and archiving needs of key stakeholder communities, including national
policies, resourcing and infrastructure and law reform
•Proposal for National Archival and Recordkeeping Framework
•Proposal for National Access Policy and Instruments
•Proposal for an independent Living Archive of the Child in ‘‘Care’’
•Recommendations for more extensive suite of rights in records, including rights
of disclosure, rights to ‘‘set the record straight’’ and rights to share in decision-
making about records of individuals, plus rights to forget.
•Proposal for National Network of Community-based Archives with community-
controlled nodes, and support for community recordkeeping infrastructure
•Identification of a research and development agenda to support the Decadal Plan
•Recommendations for clever use of enabling technologies
The Summit itself is part of the process. It aims to be a coalescing point, a
beginning of a 10, 20, 50 years plan for transforming recordkeeping and archiving,
and a springboard for action. A series of meetings with stakeholders and people we
seek to influence will be held in the lead up to the Summit, with communication,
media, social media, advocacy, research and development strategies developed for
the Summit and beyond. A major challenge is advocacy within the recordkeeping
and archival community of the need to transform our frameworks, policies, systems
and practice—for the needs of these four communities, but also for all Australians.
With reference to the MAP model we are, as a community, in Stages 1 and 2. The
vision for the Summit and its outcomes is that it will provide a blueprint for
navigating Stages 3 to 8. If the Summit’s goals are achieved, it will contribute in the
long term to archival activism becoming an integral part of social justice and human
rights movements locally and globally, playing its part in the reforms and
transformative actions envisaged in Stages 7 and 8 of the MAP model, and
addressing the grand societal challenge of archival autonomy for communities.
Conclusion
Transformations of archival law, policy, systems and practices beyond the
boundaries of individual organisations and jurisdictions is required for the
development of archival and recordkeeping frameworks and infrastructure which
better protects and respects citizen and human rights, as well as contributing to
quality of life. Archival activism must extend beyond encouraging greater diversity
in archival collections or supporting the social justice work of others to transform
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the way that archival and recordkeeping systems connect and communicate and are
threaded into the community, organisational and social fabrics.
Unless the archival community embraces archival activism and archival
autonomy as a grand societal challenge, then the inquires, the apologies, the battle
for funds to adequately resource responses will continue. The beginnings of a new
cycle is already evident as Australia’s Human Rights Commission undertakes an
inquiry into the over 1000 children currently held in immigration detention centres
(Australian Human Rights Commission 2014). Dysfunctional recordkeeping and
fragmented archival access networks will also continue. The latest Victorian
Auditor General’s report into residential care services for children once again
highlights how inadequate recordkeeping is putting children at risk (Victorian
Auditor General 2014).
As we were writing this paper, we were reminded in one of the many tributes to
Terry Cook that we can and should be looking to make a difference:
Rather, take the archival ideal, the best from the past, and go and re-invent
how society can best archive itself, in an entirely new context of record
making and record keeping in a wired, socially networked, and inter-active
world…. to take our profession to a better future (Cook 2010).
Acknowledgments We gratefully acknowledge the Trust and Technology Project’s community and
industry partners: the Public Record Office of Victoria, the Koorie Heritage Trust Inc., the Victorian
Koorie Records Taskforce and the Australian Society of Archivists Indigenous Issues Special Interest
Group, the Project’s Advisory Group and the eighty-one participants from the Koorie communities of
Victoria who agreed to be interviewed as part of the project, along with thirteen archival service
providers, managers and mediators. We also gratefully acknowledge the care leavers who were willing to
share their stories in the Who Am I? Project and participating organisations: the Centre for Excellence in
Child and Family Welfare, the Victorian Department of Human Services, Child and Family Services
Ballarat, Berry Street, Anglicare Victoria, Glastonbury Child and Family Services, Good Shepherd Youth
and Family Services, Kildonan Child and Family Services, Mackillop Family Services, Office of the
Child Safety Commissioner, Victoria, Orana Family Services, Public Record Office Victoria, St Lukes
Anglicare, Victorian Aboriginal Child Care Agency Co-op Ltd, Wesley Mission, Westcare (Salvation
Army), CLAN, CREATE Foundation, Connecting Home, Link Up and Open Place.
Ethical standard All authors declare that they have no undeclared conflicts of interest. The studies
discussed in this article were carried out in accordance with the Australian Code of Conduct for Re-
sponsible Research.
Appendix
See Table 1.
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Table 1 Case study communities, national inquiries, national apologies and select statements on records and archives
Community Major national inquiry National apology Records
Stolen Generations
From 1909 to 1969 up to 50,000
Indigenous children were forcibly
removed from their families under
policies aimed at the assimilation of
‘‘half-caste’’ children into white
society and ‘‘breeding out’’
Aboriginality
April 1997 Bringing Them Home
Report of the National Inquiry into
the Separation of Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Islander Children from
Their Families
Human Rights and Equal Opportunity
Commission
(now the Australian Human Rights
Commission)
13 February 2008 Apology
‘‘We apologise for the laws and policies
of successive Parliaments and
governments that have inflicted
profound grief, suffering and loss on
these our fellow Australians. …. For
the pain, suffering and hurt of these
Stolen Generations, their descendants
and for their families left behind, we
say sorry. To the mothers and the
fathers, the brothers and the sisters, for
the breaking up of families and
communities, we say sorry. And for the
indignity and degradation thus inflicted
on a proud people and a proud culture,
we say sorry’’. (Prime Minister of
Australia 2008)
From the Bringing them Home Report:
‘‘The Inquiry’s recommendations are
designed to achieve three broad
objectives. First, all records which may
be of assistance to Indigenous people
seeking to re-establish family and
community links or establish
Indigenous identity must be preserved.
All culling of relevant or potentially
relevant records must be embargoed.
Second, access to records must be
made easier and less hurtful. This
involves improving access procedures,
ensuring culturally appropriate access
and involving the counselling and
support assistance of Indigenous family
tracing and reunion services. Third, in
the longer term Indigenous
communities should have an
opportunity to manage their own
historical documentation. For those
communities which desire it, copies of
relevant records collections should be
provided to Indigenous repositories
within established privacy principles’’.
(Human Rights and Equal Opportunity
Commission 1997)
The Wilam Naling Report is an example
of response from archival community
(Victorian Koorie Records Taskforce
2006)
360 Arch Sci (2015) 15:337–368
123
Table 1 continued
Community Major national inquiry National apology Records
Former Child Migrants
From 1900 through to the early 1970s an
estimated 7000 unaccompanied
children were brought to Australia
from the UK and Malta under a variety
of approved schemes. Many were
removed without their parents’
knowledge or consent and ended up put
to work as labourers in remote and
harsh institutions (Child Migrants Trust
2014)
30 August 2001 Lost Innocents:
Righting the Record—Report on
Child Migration
Parliament of Australia, Senate
Standing Committee on Community
Affairs
16 November 2009 Apology
‘‘We acknowledge the particular pain of
children shipped to Australia as child
migrants—robbed of your families,
robbed of your homeland, regarded not
as innocent children but regarded
instead as a source of child labour. To
those of you who were told you were
orphans, brought here without your
parents’ knowledge or consent, we
acknowledge the lies you were told, the
lies told to your mothers and fathers,
and the pain these lies have caused for
a lifetime
To those of you separated on the
dockside from your brothers and
sisters— taken alone and unprotected
to the most remote parts of a foreign
land—we acknowledge today that the
laws of our nation failed you. And for
this we are deeply sorry’’. (Prime
Minister of Australia 2009)
From the Lost Innocents Report:
‘‘The Committee notes that many former
child migrants have been helped by the
Child Migrant Trust in the search for
their families. The Trust has built up
significant expertise in tracing. Often
tracing is a long and difficult process
with Trust officers liaising with
sending and receiving agencies to
tracking down old records, sifting
through birth, deaths and marriage
registers and finally locating lost
family members. Other agencies also
provide tracing services: C-BERS
through the Catholic Child Welfare
Council UK, NCH, Barnardos UK and
the Salvation Army. However, past
attitudes to family contact, record
keeping practices and the falsification
of records has made the tracing of
many families enormously difficult’’.
(Senate Standing Committee on
Community Affairs 2001)
Outcomes revisited in 2009 with Lost
Innocents and Forgotten Australians
Revisited Report (Senate Standing
Committee on Community Affairs
2009)
Arch Sci (2015) 15:337–368 361
123
Table 1 continued
Community Major national inquiry National apology Records
Forgotten Australians
Survivors of the estimated 500,000
children who found themselves in
institutional or other out-of-home
‘‘care’’ throughout the Twentieth
Century (Alliance for Forgotten
Australians 2011)
30 August 2004 Forgotten
Australians: A Report on
Australians Who Experienced
Institutional or Out-of-Home Care
as Children
Parliament of Australia, Senate
Standing Committee on Community
Affairs
16 November 2009 Apology
‘‘Sorry—that as children you were taken
from your families and placed in
institutions where so often you were
abused. Sorry—for the physical
suffering, the emotional starvation and
the cold absence of love, of tenderness,
of care. Sorry—for the tragedy, the
absolute tragedy, of childhoods lost,
childhoods spent instead in austere and
authoritarian places, where names were
replaced by numbers, spontaneous play
by regimented routine, the joy of
learning by the repetitive drudgery of
menial work. Sorry—for all these
injustices to you, as children, who were
placed in our care’’. (Prime Minister of
Australia 2009)
From the 2009 Apology:
‘‘Third, many Forgotten Australians and
child migrants continue to need help in
tracing their families. That is why we’ll
be providing a National Find and
Connect Service that will provide
Australia-wide coordinated family
tracing and support services for care
leavers to locate personal and family
history files and the reunite with
members of their families, where that
is possible
The service will provide a national
database that will collate and index
existing state identified records into a
national searchable data base,
accessible to state and other care leaver
services and also directly to care
leavers themselves’’
Outcomes revisited in 2009 with Lost
Innocents and Forgotten Australians
Revisited Report (Senate Standing
Committee on Community Affairs
2009)
362 Arch Sci (2015) 15:337–368
123
Table 1 continued
Community Major national inquiry National apology Records
Forced Adoptions
Those impacted by policies in the 1950s–
1970s which removed babies at birth
from young unmarried mothers against
their will to put them up for adoption
29 February 2012 Commonwealth
Contribution to Former Forced
Adoption Policies and Practices
Parliament of Australia, Senate
Standing Committee on Community
Affairs
21 March 2013 Apology
‘‘Today, this Parliament, on behalf of the
Australian people, takes responsibility
and apologises for the policies and
practices that forced the separation of
mothers from their babies which
created a lifelong legacy of pain and
suffering. …We say sorry to you, the
mothers who were denied knowledge
of your rights, which meant you could
not provide informed consent. …To
each of you who were adopted or
removed, who were led to believe your
mother had rejected you and who were
denied the opportunity to grow up with
your family and community of origin
and to connect with your culture, we
say sorry. …To you, the fathers, who
were excluded from the lives of your
children and deprived of the dignity of
recognition on your children’s birth
records, we say sorry. …. To you, the
siblings, grandparents, partners and
other family members who have shared
in the pain and suffering of your loved
ones or who were unable to share their
lives, we say sorry’’. (Attorney-
General’s Department 2013)
From the 2013 Apology:
To redress the shameful mistakes of the
past, we are committed to ensuring that
all those affected get the help they
need, including access to specialist
counselling services and support, the
ability to find the truth in freely
available records and assistance in
reconnecting with lost family. We
resolve, as a nation, to do all in our
power to make sure these practices are
never repeated. In facing future
challenges, we will remember the
lessons of family separation. Our focus
will be on protecting the fundamental
rights of children and on the
importance of the child’s right to know
and be cared for by his or her parents’.
(Attorney-General’s Department 2013)
As identified by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse (2014a) ,there have been at least 79 different inquires across a number of
jurisdictions into these communities and their needs
Arch Sci (2015) 15:337–368 363
123
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Dr. Joanne Evans is a Senior Lecturer in archives and recordkeeping in the Faculty of IT, Monash
University, and is a coordinator of the Records Continuum Research Group, part of the faculty’s Centre of
Organisational and Social Informatics (COSI). She has many years of experience in archival system
development; with the technologies she has involved in designing and developing deployed into a number
of research projects, as well as being utilised in a number of archival settings. Her research interests lie in
the multifarious roles metadata plays in creating, managing, and sustaining information and
recordkeeping infrastructure and systems.
Professor Sue McKemmish, Ph.D. is the Chair of Archival Systems, Monash University, Director of the
Monash University Centre for Organisational and Social Informatics, and Associate Dean Graduate Re-
search of the Faculty of Information Technology. She is engaged in major research and standards
initiatives relating to the use of metadata in records and archival systems, information resource discovery
and smart information portals, Australian Indigenous archives, and the development of more inclusive
archival educational programs that meet the needs of diverse communities. Sue McKemmish directs the
postgraduate teaching programs in records and archives at Monash, has published extensively on
recordkeeping in society, records continuum theory, recordkeeping metadata, and archival systems, and is
a Laureate of the Australian Society of Archivists.
Elizabeth Daniels is a Ph.D. student in the Centre of Organisational and Social Informatics at Monash
University. She also works part-time as a Research Archivist at the eScholarship Research Centre at the
University of Melbourne. She completed a Graduate Diploma in Information and Knowledge
Management at Monash in 2012 and was awarded a 2012 Australian Society of Archivists Mander
Jones award for the best academic work on archives or recordkeeping produced by a student in an
Australian university course.
Associate Professor Gavan McCarthy has worked at the University of Melbourne in and around
archives since 1978. In 2007, he was appointed Director of the eScholarship Research Centre in the
University Library and in 2013 was appointed Associate Professor. He was the Director of the Australian
Science and Technology Heritage Centre (1999–2006) and led the Australian Science Archives Project
(1985–1999), both in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science, Faculty of Arts, University of
Melbourne. His research, predominantly based on action research methodologies, covers the history and
archives of Australian science, contextual information frameworks, archival science and the preservation
of knowledge, and the utilisation of network science in social and cultural informatics.
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