Disputed Archival Heritage brings important new perspectives into the discourse on displaced archives. In contrast to shared or joint heritage framings, the book considers the implications of force, violence and loss in the displacement of archival heritage.
With chapters from established and emerging scholars in archival studies, Disputed Archival Heritage extends and enriches the conversation that started with the earlier volume, Displaced Archives. Advancing novel theories and methods for understanding disputes and claims over archives, the volume includes chapters that focus on Indigenous records in settler colonial states; literary and community archives; sub-national and private sector displacements; successes in repatriating formerly displaced archives; comparisons with cultural objects seized by colonial powers and the relationship between repatriation and reparations. Analysing key concepts such as joint heritage and provenance, the contributors unsettle Western understandings of records, place and ownership.
Disputed Archival Heritage speaks to the growing interest in shared archival heritage, repatriation of cultural artefacts and cultural diasporas. As such, it will be a useful resource for academics, students and practitioners working in the field of archives, records and information management, as well as cultural property and heritage management, peace and conflict studies and international law.
Foreword by Jeannette Bastian; Legerdemain by Kayo Chingonyi; Introduction by James Lowry; Part I: Places and Sovereignties -- 1. ‘Joint Heritage’: Provincializing an Archival Ideal; 2. ‘Provenance in Place’: Crafting the Vienna Convention for Global Decolonization and Archival Repatriation; 3. Re-placing Evidence: Locating archival displacement in the US Federal Acknowledgement Process; 4. Ngaadzoke Please: A Dare/Inkundla for the Rhodesian Army Records; Part II: Borders and Diasporas – 5. Below the Nation State: Power Asymmetry and Jurisdictional Boundaries around the Archives of the Madeira Archipelago; 6. Records in Motion: The New York Times and the ‘ISIS Files’; 7. Archival Entanglements: Colonial Rule and Records in Namibia; 8. Diasporic, Displaced, Alienated or Shared: Caribbean Literary Archives; Part III: Towards Home – 9. Displaced, Un-placed and Re-placed: Armenian Archives in the US; 10. Claims for Colonial Objects and Claims for Colonial Archives: Can the Two Meet?; 11. The Repatriation of Surinamese archives from the Netherlands: (a) The Dutch Perspective, (b) The Surinamese Perspective; 12. Value Displaced, Value Re/Claimed: Musings on Reparations.
James Lowry is Associate Professor in Information Studies at Queens College, City University of New York. He is an Honorary Research Fellow and former co-director of the Liverpool University Centre for Archive Studies, where he taught following a ten-year career in archives and records management. James is editor of the Routledge Studies in Archives book series.
