Friday, August 04, 2006
I am a bad SAM president
Instead of attending either the Plenary session of the SAA conference or the Cokie Roberts talk (which, I should note, Dr. Davis was very upset she had to miss and thus I feel especially bad about missing myself), I am sitting in a coffee shop in Dupont Circle and updating this blog. Well, at least I'm doing SOMETHING related to my presidential duties. (Also I have no internet at home presently, so this is the only means I have of feeding my addiction)
Anyway! SAA is very hectic from what I've seen thus far. Not that I'd expect anything else-- I mean, it IS the national conference of the national archivist organization-- but it's still a little overwhelming, particularly for people (like myself) who haven't been to one of these things before. I have not been doing as much of the connection-making thing as I probably should be, but it sounds like the other SAM folk at the conference (Of which there are many, thanks to proximity to UMCP) have been, so when in doubt I can ask the membership for help. Hurray for delegation!
Sessions attended by Brad
"The Archival Pharmakon"
Veeery interesting session. The premise of the thing was that archives, which in an ideal world should be used exclusively for good, had the potential to also be used in the service of, not evil exactly, but less-than-moral purposes-- and often were, particularly by the government. Rand Jimerson, former president of SAA (and particularly interesting with respect to this session because he was in that role when Allen Weinstein was confirmed), took the more optimistic view of the two speakers, noting that while there are many historical examples of governments using records to their particular advantage (the most cogent example he used was that of the Apartheid Regime in South Africa), they could also be forces for good, and that it was the job of the archivist to make them such. In particular, Jimerson pointed out 4 functions of archives in this regard: 1) To hold politicians accountable; 2) To address social injustices; 3) To help represent the unrepresented and minority groups in society; and 4)To make records available without the influence of political pressure. He noted that archivists have to be careful to examine our own cultural and societal biases when deciding what is to be saved and how to describe it, which is certainly good advice. I was a bit more struck by his quoting of Verne Harris, however, when he noted that "Our most important accounting is to the call of justice" and postulated that in cases such as the Tuskegee syphilis experiments it is the responsibility of the archivists to call attention to such records. Hm. I wonder. Certainly we need to make them available if at all possible, but is it really the job of the archivist to do advocacy on the contents of his/her own records? Doesn't that compromise some of the objectivity that we need to maintain? (On the other hand, as a history student and activist I'm all for this kind of action-- maybe not as a professional though.)
Roy Turnbaugh's commentary on the issue was much more inflammatory, and for that reason I thought much more interesting. His talk began with a radical statement, "Archives in America have little power because history has little power," and he spent most of his time attempting to prove that statement. He noted, fairly I think, that NARA has a weak hand in regards to autonomy because it's an executive office (something which I've always wondered about myself... why make the guy in charge of establishing archives policy for the ENTIRE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT a political appointee) and that it's been further weakened by various executive orders taking power from the hands of archivists and put into the hands of politicians. He asserted that the national archives were, by and large, used to buttress the power of the current order rather than to provide any meaningful accountability (a word which he took exception to anyway, calling it "a stand-in for justice") and said that the historical narrative put forth by NARA was by and large in support of a "Bankrupt Nationalism." Turnbaugh said that the people themselves had to deal with this problem, but that "If there is a way out, it's not through an archives." Again, I find my professional self at odds with my activist self-- I'm right with him on the way that national archives "filter meaning" to serve their own ends, but I'm not sure if I agree with his comment during the question time that there would be "no difference on a macro level" to government accountability if the national archives didn't exist. Perhaps because I am just starting out I am naive, but I think what the National Archives chooses to display is very different from what is actually available, and that with the right diligence people can find the truth behind the filtered narrative. (Whether they can get the public to listen is another question-- Look at Howard Zinn, for example, who is (rightly or wrongly) reviled as a nutcase by much of the historical 'establishment'.) Certainly, though, it is incumbent upon us as a profession to work on it-- we cannot, as he said, "keep supporting the complacency of our government and its leaders."
Aack. These take longer than I thought. More later when I don't have to run to a section roundtable. Meanwhile, comments welcome!
Anyway! SAA is very hectic from what I've seen thus far. Not that I'd expect anything else-- I mean, it IS the national conference of the national archivist organization-- but it's still a little overwhelming, particularly for people (like myself) who haven't been to one of these things before. I have not been doing as much of the connection-making thing as I probably should be, but it sounds like the other SAM folk at the conference (Of which there are many, thanks to proximity to UMCP) have been, so when in doubt I can ask the membership for help. Hurray for delegation!
Sessions attended by Brad
"The Archival Pharmakon"
Veeery interesting session. The premise of the thing was that archives, which in an ideal world should be used exclusively for good, had the potential to also be used in the service of, not evil exactly, but less-than-moral purposes-- and often were, particularly by the government. Rand Jimerson, former president of SAA (and particularly interesting with respect to this session because he was in that role when Allen Weinstein was confirmed), took the more optimistic view of the two speakers, noting that while there are many historical examples of governments using records to their particular advantage (the most cogent example he used was that of the Apartheid Regime in South Africa), they could also be forces for good, and that it was the job of the archivist to make them such. In particular, Jimerson pointed out 4 functions of archives in this regard: 1) To hold politicians accountable; 2) To address social injustices; 3) To help represent the unrepresented and minority groups in society; and 4)To make records available without the influence of political pressure. He noted that archivists have to be careful to examine our own cultural and societal biases when deciding what is to be saved and how to describe it, which is certainly good advice. I was a bit more struck by his quoting of Verne Harris, however, when he noted that "Our most important accounting is to the call of justice" and postulated that in cases such as the Tuskegee syphilis experiments it is the responsibility of the archivists to call attention to such records. Hm. I wonder. Certainly we need to make them available if at all possible, but is it really the job of the archivist to do advocacy on the contents of his/her own records? Doesn't that compromise some of the objectivity that we need to maintain? (On the other hand, as a history student and activist I'm all for this kind of action-- maybe not as a professional though.)
Roy Turnbaugh's commentary on the issue was much more inflammatory, and for that reason I thought much more interesting. His talk began with a radical statement, "Archives in America have little power because history has little power," and he spent most of his time attempting to prove that statement. He noted, fairly I think, that NARA has a weak hand in regards to autonomy because it's an executive office (something which I've always wondered about myself... why make the guy in charge of establishing archives policy for the ENTIRE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT a political appointee) and that it's been further weakened by various executive orders taking power from the hands of archivists and put into the hands of politicians. He asserted that the national archives were, by and large, used to buttress the power of the current order rather than to provide any meaningful accountability (a word which he took exception to anyway, calling it "a stand-in for justice") and said that the historical narrative put forth by NARA was by and large in support of a "Bankrupt Nationalism." Turnbaugh said that the people themselves had to deal with this problem, but that "If there is a way out, it's not through an archives." Again, I find my professional self at odds with my activist self-- I'm right with him on the way that national archives "filter meaning" to serve their own ends, but I'm not sure if I agree with his comment during the question time that there would be "no difference on a macro level" to government accountability if the national archives didn't exist. Perhaps because I am just starting out I am naive, but I think what the National Archives chooses to display is very different from what is actually available, and that with the right diligence people can find the truth behind the filtered narrative. (Whether they can get the public to listen is another question-- Look at Howard Zinn, for example, who is (rightly or wrongly) reviled as a nutcase by much of the historical 'establishment'.) Certainly, though, it is incumbent upon us as a profession to work on it-- we cannot, as he said, "keep supporting the complacency of our government and its leaders."
Aack. These take longer than I thought. More later when I don't have to run to a section roundtable. Meanwhile, comments welcome!
# posted by Unknown @ 8/04/2006 09:22:00 AM 
