Archivists on archives and social justice.

Abstract

To foster a deep understanding of what an archive is and what it can offer qualitative psychologists interested in lives, contexts, and social justice, we present a qualitative study that examines the construct, archive, empirically. Based on interviews conducted with archivists from five archives ranging in size and scope from a large institutional archive to a small, intimate family archive the article examines how archives engage with vital social justice questions. Applying the Critical Incident Technique (Flanagan, 1954), we analyze archivists' narratives via psychological models of justice. In each interview we highlight matters of social justice in archives on displaced scholars in World War II, the AIDS epidemic, Lesbian histories, the September 11th attack on the World Trade Center in New York City, conflict and protest resulting from a college's closure, and the entwinement of a family's history and their social justice values. This understanding of archives from the perspective of archivists theorizes the construct, archive, and conveys the rich empirical resources that archives offer researchers.

Alternative pathways to activism: Intersections of social and personal pasts in the narratives of women’s rights activists.

“…As Belmonte and Opotow (2017) argue, archives bring psychologists closer to an interdisciplinary community of scholars who have an interest in studying the past with a social justice orientation. The GFP archive is an interdisciplinary and collaborative effort that brings together historians, psychologists, women’s studies scholars, artists and activists.…”

“…Tileagã and Byford (2017) in their editorial in that particular issue argue that archival material does not restrict qualitative researchers in their choice of methods; in fact the use of critical methodological approaches when engaging with the archives enhances the usefulness of the archives in the process of uncovering subjugated knowledge. Qualitative researchers have suggested, and in some cases exemplified, combining archival studies with discursive psychology (Lester, 2014), rhetorical analysis (Byford & Tileagã, 2017), and the critical incident technique (Belmonte & Opotow, 2017). In the current study, we contribute to this range of methods by using a qualitative thematic analysis technique (Braun & Clarke, 2013) to make sense of an oral history archive which includes the narratives of women’s rights activists.…”

Reflecting back and imagining forward: Qualitative inquiry in psychology at the dawn of a new era.

“…Alongside this focused section, it has also published articles throughout the years which specifically highlight topics such as critical reflexivity (Gemignani, 2017), transparency (Tuval-Mashiach, 2017), listening (McClelland, 2017), and ethics (Sherriff et al, 2014). These articles complement the numerous articles that enact such critical sensibilities via research (e.g., Belmonte & Opotow, 2017;Stoudt, 2016). In doing so, the journal has played an important role over the past decade in ensuring that critical appraisals remain embedded in methodological discussions.…”

Crafting New Narratives of Diasporic Resistance with Indo-Caribbean Women and Gender-Expansive People across Generations

“…In other words, oral history is not only the product that is created, but perhaps more importantly, the process of building new sources of knowledge out of complex personal histories and experiences. This project considers historical erasure as a form of violence and explores the ways in which archives can be used to promote distributive justice [16], or the potential for material about the past or recent past that was otherwise unknowable to become available, allowing people to connect with historical events that were previously inaccessible.…”