Managing an organization’s current records is records management, and maintaining records of enduring value is archives management.
Archival Management
The archival profession is characterized by dedication to public memory, cultural preservation, and service. However, beneath this noble mission lies a troubling reality: the increasing reliance on gig and contract labor.
Archival Management
Written documents have long occupied a privileged position in archives as the most authoritative memory source. However, this excludes vast repositories of knowledge that reside outside the written word, especially within Indigenous communities, where memory is often preserved and transmitted through oral traditions, performance, storytelling, ceremony, and embodied practices.
Archival Management
Archival description is often treated as a neutral or technical task: summarizing contents, assigning subject headings, and organizing metadata for retrieval. However, description is actually far from neutral. It shapes how users interpret records, which narratives are centered, and whose voices are made visible or erased.
Archival Management
As the archival profession reckons with the legacies of colonialism, more institutions and practitioners are turning toward Indigenous and decolonial approaches that reframe traditional archival practice. Central to this shift is recognizing cultural protocols and community-defined rules governing how knowledge is created, shared, accessed, and preserved. Cultural protocols are foundational to ethical, respectful, and reciprocal relationships between archives and Indigenous communities.
Archival Management
In recent decades, Indigenous communities and archivists have challenged the dominant frameworks that have long shaped archival practice. Traditionally, Western archival models have prioritized state authority, institutional control, and the presumption of neutrality. These models often fail to reflect Indigenous worldviews, community needs, or the rights of Indigenous peoples over their records and heritage.
