Community Archives and Identities:
Documenting and Sustaining Community Heritage
We are a team of researchers (Mary Stevens, Andrew Flinn, Elizabeth Shepherd) at
University College London in the School of Library, Archive and Information Studies.
During 2008-2009 we are conducting a series of in-depth studies of Black and minority
ethnic community archives, financed by the Arts and Humanities Research Council
(www.ahrc.ac.uk).
By community archives we mean any collection of material that documents one or many
aspects of a community’s heritage, collected in, by and for that community and looked
after by its members. This material helps tell the story of groups of people who have often
been excluded from mainstream archives, which have tended to focus on official
documents and the lives of elites. In our project we will investigate the role community
archives play in supporting a sense of rootedness and identity amongst members of a
community, as well as what they do to raise awareness of these neglected stories in the
wider public. Ultimately, we are interested in the social impact of community archives on
their creators and on their publics.
Until now there has been very little concrete evidence demonstrating the potential benefits
of community archives. Research that has been done has mostly focused on the social
impact of museums. We aim to fill this gap by providing detailed evidence of the ways in
which community archives and histories impact on the lives of those they touch.
To do this we will be working very closely over several months with the community
archives who have agreed to take part in our research. A researcher will be participating
actively in and contributing to the work of the archives, documenting her experiences in
order to build up a detailed picture of the organisation and the effect of its work that is
much more than just a snapshot.
We hope that the community archives chosen will see the project as a collaborative
venture with concrete benefits for themselves. Moreover, in contributing to the research
we anticipate that in a small way they will be helping to secure the long-term future of the
sector, by providing evidence of the value of community archives to today’s diverse
society.
Further details about the project can be found at:
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/slais/research/icarus/community-archives/
Or contact project leader Dr Andrew Flinn (a.flinn@ucl.ac.uk / 020 7679 2481) or the
researcher, Dr Mary Stevens (mary.stevens@ucl.ac.uk / 020 7679 3232).
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/slais/research/icarus/community-archives/