Abstract
Analyzes attitudes and use of archives by post-colonial scholars who find that colonial records offer the voices of the master narrative but do not reflect the voices of the oppressed and voiceless. Argues that framing records within social provenance and a ‘community of records’ offers archival solutions to the dilemmas of locating all voices within the spaces of records.
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“As for what we were like before we met you, I no longer care. No periods of time over which my ancestor held sway, no documentation of complex civilizations, is any comfort to me. Even if I really came from people who were living like monkeys in trees, it was better to be that than what happened to, me, what I became after I met you.”
Jamaica Kincaid, A Small Place
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Bastian, J.A. Reading Colonial Records Through an Archival Lens: The Provenance of Place, Space and Creation. Arch Sci 6, 267–284 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10502-006-9019-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10502-006-9019-1