Decolonisation, equity and inclusivity at Hull University Archives
In this, the third in a series of blogposts from the Inclusive Cataloguing Working Group of the Diversity and Inclusion Allies, Sarah Pymer writes about the work of the University Library and Archives in decolonising the curriculum and creating a fairer, more inclusive institution.
Decolonisation, equity and inclusivity at Hull University Archives
Here at the University of Hull, a commitment to social justice is enshrined in the University’s Strategy 2030 strategic plan. The University Library and Archives have fully embraced this, and we’re playing our part in decolonising the curriculum and creating a fairer, more inclusive institution.
Decolonisation has multiple definitions, but we include three in our Diversified Collections plan. One I particularly like comes from an article in The Guardian:
Decolonising universities is not about completely eliminating white men from the curriculum. It's about challenging longstanding biases and omissions that limit how we understand politics and society... to interrogate its assumptions and broaden our intellectual vision to include a wider range of perspectives. While decolonising the curriculum can mean different things, it includes a fundamental reconsideration of who is teaching, what the subject matter is and how it's being taught[.]
Archives have been complicit in those longstanding biases and omissions. This is not necessarily because archivists have acted out of malice or even thoughtlessness, but because we’re a product of our culture, which prizes whiteness, European-ness, maleness, heteronormativity, able-bodiedness… the list goes on.
Decolonisation is a positive step, a way for us to look critically at what we collect, how we describe it, and how we encourage and enable people to use the material we hold. We extend decolonisation into wider inclusivity – we want our collections to be used by, and reflective of, a much wider range of people than in the past. We want to enable people to interact with them in new ways, and to see themselves reflected in our collections.
That doesn’t mean we’re going to throw away all the white men’s papers from our collections. I can categorically say we won’t be doing that. But we will look at them again and see what they can tell us about people whose lives intersected with them in different ways.
Some of the actions we’re taking are:
When we run sessions for students introducing them to working with archives, we also introduce them to thinking critically about what “the archive” is and is not. Whose voice is present, and whose is missing? Why is that? How can the researcher think critically about what presences and omissions tell them? We also discuss the role of the archivist in shaping collections, and how archive catalogues can help (and hinder) researchers looking for underrepresented histories.
We’re working on ways to reshape our deposit and appraisal decisions to ensure that we take in a wider range of records from our depositors, to represent a broader section of society.
We’re assessing our existing catalogues to look for descriptions which could represent the collections in a fairer way. For example, are women described as people in their own right, or only in relation to their husband or father? If the collection contains material relating to underrepresented groups, does the catalogue indicate that clearly so that they can be found? Are we using any outdated terms for people or groups which should be updated?
We’re also looking at how we might change our cataloguing procedures in the future to capture a fuller picture of records, for example by working with communities or groups whose history is represented in a collection.
We’re a small team, and things sometimes go more slowly than we’d like. But we look at decolonisation and becoming more inclusive as an ongoing process, not a destination. We will never reach a day when we can say, great, this is all decolonised, now we can sit back and relax! Views and practices will continue to evolve over time, and that’s OK: we’ll evolve with them.
Thumbnail image photo credit 43 Clicks North via Unsplash