My latest collaboration with Skylee-Storm Hogan, an article titled “Residential School Archives: Spaces of Trauma and Community Healing,” is now available as a pre-print via the Journal of Critical Library and Information Studies.
Here’s the abstract:
Colonial archives are sites of trauma, erasure, and grief for many marginalized communities. In Canada the vast majority of archives relating to Indigenous peoples are held by government, church, and non-Indigenous archives. Colonial archives have actively taken Indigenous culture and heritage away from communities and made it inaccessible to those who the records are about. Many archives containing information relating to Residential Schools have just begun to grapple with the ethical and professional obligations that come from holding records that document colonial violence, abuse, death, and assimilationist practices.
This article explores the practices of the Shingwauk Residential Schools Centre (SRSC) community archive and the ways in which the SRSC supports community healing and navigates traumatic archival records. Since its establishment the SRSC archives has been a place of raw emotion and grief, but also a place of tremendous community strength, healing, and resilience. This article will explore the trauma associated with archives of Residential Schools and the ongoing navigation of archival spaces which embody loss and community.