# Notes de lecture

## Bastian, J.A., Griffin, S.H. [Archival dignity, colonial records and community narratives.](https://doi.org/10.1007/s10502-024-09436-y) Arch Sci (2024).

### Apports

* Si poser un autre regard sur les archives produites pendant la colonisation est important, il ne suffit pas à décoloniser les archives,
* La proposition est d'élargir les fonds d'archives à des contenus non-écrits et surtout non produits pas les administrations coloniales,
* Les archives doivent donc prendre en compte des archives d'ordre plus culturel : tradition orale, musique, production artisanale, danse, paysages, etc. Ce que Bastian nomment les _"Living Archives"_
* La proposition principale est de rendre visible ce patrimoine via des portails Internet.

### Limites
* L'article ne donne pas d'éléments sur les méthodes de collecte de ces artefacts, ni comment il est possible d'associer les populations concernées par ce patrimoine,
* Les traitements archivistiques sont invisibles, il manque toute une partie sur les biais que les archivistes introduiront de part leurs descriptions, indexations, choix de mise en ligne, etc.
* Le numérique est décrite comme un objet positivement neutre, alors que l'on connait les importants biais d'accès mais aussi d'appréhension de contenus numériques.
* Alors que le numérique crée une interface entre l'usagers et les artefacts aucune piste de médiation et de l'éventuel rôle des archivistes dans ce domaine.

### Extraits

> Reaffirming the dignity of Caribbean populations requires participation by the community in reconceptualizing and rebuilding the historic narrative, a rebuilding that draws from the collective memory and oral traditions of the community as well as from the official record.

> Reading ‘with the grain’, an approach to colonial records promoted by anthropologist Laura Ann Stoler,focuses on archives as a process rather than archives as items.

> these silences _[of the colonial archives]_ cannot be filled by the colonial archive itself.

> it is important to go beyond official documents and consider a wider range of cultural material—objects, photographs, sketches, paintings, songs, gossip,rumour, alongside historical fiction” (Das 2021, p. 240).

> The dignity of the decolonized community is in the restoration and re/exultation of their information creating, bearing and promulgating praxis.

> Ascribing archival dignity is possible in collection development, ostcustodial agreements, participatory descriptions, culturally appropriate access and with the assistance of evolving digital technology, crafting dynamic and experiential “Living Archives”—as suggested by Jeannette Bastian—that offers equity to the archival memory of all within the society (Bastian 2023, p. 103).

> The National Archives were initially perceived as the documented memory of the whites, and therefore irrelevant and useless to present-day Kittitian society.

> O’Flaherty _[St. Kitts' National Archiviste from 1996 to 2019]_ recognized that the ‘archive of the masses’ was in the living activities and cultural expressions outside the repository.

> The growing proliferation of artificial intelligence could be foreseen as adding broader ranges and deeper levels of engagement in historically-blended and culturally representative access.