Michelle Caswell
Biographic Data
| ID | 375441 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Michelle Caswell |
| GIVEN NAMES | Michelle |
| FAMILY NAME | Caswell |
| SIGNATURE | CASWELL M |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of California, Los Angeles |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-6710-597X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 26 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 181 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 26 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2010 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 8 |
Sometimes a Kitchen, Sometimes a Zoom Call”
During the onset of the COVID-19 crisis, two community archives—After Violence Project (AVP) and South Asian American Digital Archive (SAADA)—shifted their oral history programs online. Both organizations wanted to know if narrators felt differently about telling their stories via videoconferencing. To answer this question, we conducted research interviews with narrators after they shared their life stories with AVP or SAADA to assess their exper…
Paying It Forward: The Prefigurative Politics of Record Creation
Through analysis of data from interviews with people who shared their stories with two community archives, Texas After Violence Project (TAVP) and South Asian American Digital Archive (SAADA), this article examines how records creators imagine future use and users. Our findings reveal that people create records with concrete ideas of who might access their record and how they might use it. In keeping with community archives research that troubles…
We Bounce Off Each Other’s Vibe’: The Importance of Symmetrical Intersubjectivity between Interviewer and Narrator
The field of oral history has long theorized the intersubjectivities forged between narrators and interviewers, yet there is still a lingering assumption in some oral history literature that the positionality of the interviewer in relation to the narrator does not matter much to the interview process.This article seeks to challenge these assumptions by reporting on empirical data collected via interviews and focus groups with narrators who told t…
A matter of time
A matter of time Chapter one uncovers how dominant Western archival theory relies on Christian progress narratives and asks us to imagine new ways of thinking about records that are not based on linear temporalities. The dominant Western linear progress narrative is rooted in Christian cosmology and represents only one of many ways to think about time. Non-dominant temporalities posed by Hindu and Indigenous traditions, Afro-futurist speculations…
Community archives interrupting time 1
This chapter presents empirical evidence that people served and represented by minoritized identity-based community archives in the United States saw history repeating itself in the oppressive tactics of the Trump administration. More specifically, it reports on focus group data my research team and I conducted with users of community archives serving and representing LGBTQ+ people and communities of color to show how such communities are constru…
Imagining liberatory memory work 1
Drawing on Gould and Harris’s conception of “liberatory memory work,” this chapter further imagines what might constitute emancipation in an archival context. Pulling together the theoretical framing of time in Chapter 1 with the empirical focus group data from community archives in Chapter 2 and the participant observation from SAADA in Chapter 3 , I delineate three main aspects of liberatory memory work: the temporal, the affective, and the mat…
Conclusion
This book has argued that archives are neither about the safety of the past nor the distance of the future, but about enacting political change right now . In order to transform dominant archival practices into liberatory memory work, Urgent Archives , asserts we must rethink and redo the foundational oppressive concepts and structures upon which dominant Western archival theory and practice is based. The book concludes by asking readers to join …
From representation to activation
My previous work has addressed the ways in which marginalized identity-based community archives counter the “symbolic annihilation” of oppressed communities, that is, the ways that predominantly white university and government archives have underrepresented, misrepresented, or completely ignored communities of color and LGBTQ+ communities. 1 Community archives counter symbolic annihilation with “representational belonging,” empowering marginalize…
Critical Digital Archives: A Review from Archival Studies
Given the blurring of boundaries between historians and archivists in the digital realm, this article urges historians to pay more attention to discussions surrounding digital records and archival practices emerging from critical archival studies. More specifically, this article identifies and summarizes seven key themes and corresponding debates about digital records in contemporary archival studies scholarship: (1) materiality, (2) appraisal, (…
Urgent Archives: Enacting Liberatory Memory Work
Urgent Archives argues that archivists can and should do more to disrupt white supremacy and hetero-patriarchy beyond the standard liberal archival solutions of more diverse collecting and more inclusive description. Grounded in the emerging field of critical archival studies, this book uncovers how dominant western archival theories and practices are oppressive by design, while looking toward the the radical politics of community archives to env…
To go beyond”: Towards a decolonial archival praxis
Dusting for Fingerprints: Introducing Feminist Standpoint Appraisal
This article argues that feminist standpoint epistemologies help us rethink both the process by which archival value is determined and the archivists' role in that process, leading towards a new methodology, epistemology, and political strategy for appraisal, which I call "feminist standpoint appraisal." Feminist standpoint appraisal inverts dominant appraisal hierarchies that value records created by those in power to justify and consolidate the…
Imagining transformative spaces: The personal–political sites of community archives
What We Do Crosses over to Activism”
Using data gleaned from semistructured interviews with seventeen community archives founders, volunteers, and staff at twelve sites, this paper examines the relations and roles of community archives and archivists in social justice activism. Our research uncovered four findings on the politics of community archives. First, community-based archivists identify as activists, advocates, or community organizers, and this identification shapes their un…
“To Suddenly Discover Yourself Existing”: Uncovering the Impact of Community Archives 1
Although much published work assumes that independent community archives have an important impact on communities, little research has been done to assess this impact empirically. This article begins to fill this gap by reporting the results of a series of qualitative interviews with academic members of one ethnic community regarding their responses to one community archives. More specifically, this article reports on interviews conducted with Sou…
Records and their imaginaries: Imagining the impossible, making possible the imagined
False promise and new hope: Dead perpetrators, imagined documents and emergent archival evidence
When those accused of being high-level perpetrators of human rights abuse die before publicly yielding their secrets in legal and archival arenas, victims may simultaneously express relief about the perpetrator's demise and grief that, along with it, possible crucial information about the past is lost forever. Although the accused do not usually directly admit their actions and the teasing out of what actually happened is dependent upon the compl…
Christian Delage. Caught on Camera: Film in the Courtroom from the Nuremberg Trials to the Trials of the Khmer Rouge
The American public first saw footage of German concentration camps in April 1945. The images of starved bodies and corpses shocked viewers, putting to rest any lingering doubts about the enormity of Nazi war crimes, and bolstering support for a then-upcoming international tribunal to bring those most responsible to justice. Not only was film used as evidence, exhibit, and testimony at the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg and subseque…
Archiving the Unspeakable: Silence, Memory, and the Photographic Record in Cambodia
Archiving the Unspeakable: Silence, Memory, and the Photographic Record in Cambodia
Roughly 1.7 million people died in Cambodia from untreated disease, starvation, and execution during the Khmer Rouge reign of less than four years in the late 1970s. The regime's brutality has come to be symbolized by the multitude of black-and-white mug shots of prisoners taken at the notorious Tuol Sleng prison, where thousands of enemies of the state were tortured before being sent to the Killing Fields. In Archiving the Unspeakable, Michelle …
Toward a survivor-centered approach to records documenting human rights abuse: Lessons from community archives
Defining human rights archives: Introduction to the special double issue on archives and human rights
Seeing Yourself in History
Building on the author's experiences as the co-founder and a board member of the South Asian American Digital Archive (SAADA), this article posits that independent, community-based archives are crucial tools for fighting the symbolic annihilation of historically marginalized groups
On archival pluralism: What religious pluralism (and its critics) can teach us about archives
Digital cultural collections in an age of reuse and remixes
This paper explores the question of under what circumstances CI should seek to control non-commercial reuse of digital cultural works. It describes the results of a 2008 survey of CI professionals at U.S. archives, libraries and museums which gathered data on motivations to control access to and use of digital collections, factors discouraging control, and levels of concern associated with different types of unauthorized reuse. Analysis presents …
Seeing Yourself in History
Building on the author's experiences as the co-founder and a board member of the South Asian American Digital Archive (SAADA), this article posits that independent, community-based archives are crucial tools for fighting the symbolic annihilation of historically marginalized groups
Records and their imaginaries: Imagining the impossible, making possible the imagined
Urgent Archives: Enacting Liberatory Memory Work
Urgent Archives argues that archivists can and should do more to disrupt white supremacy and hetero-patriarchy beyond the standard liberal archival solutions of more diverse collecting and more inclusive description. Grounded in the emerging field of critical archival studies, this book uncovers how dominant western archival theories and practices are oppressive by design, while looking toward the the radical politics of community archives to env…
Toward a survivor-centered approach to records documenting human rights abuse: Lessons from community archives
Khmer Rouge archives: Accountability, truth, and memory in Cambodia
To go beyond”: Towards a decolonial archival praxis
Defining human rights archives: Introduction to the special double issue on archives and human rights
False promise and new hope: Dead perpetrators, imagined documents and emergent archival evidence
When those accused of being high-level perpetrators of human rights abuse die before publicly yielding their secrets in legal and archival arenas, victims may simultaneously express relief about the perpetrator's demise and grief that, along with it, possible crucial information about the past is lost forever. Although the accused do not usually directly admit their actions and the teasing out of what actually happened is dependent upon the compl…
On archival pluralism: What religious pluralism (and its critics) can teach us about archives
What We Do Crosses over to Activism”
Using data gleaned from semistructured interviews with seventeen community archives founders, volunteers, and staff at twelve sites, this paper examines the relations and roles of community archives and archivists in social justice activism. Our research uncovered four findings on the politics of community archives. First, community-based archivists identify as activists, advocates, or community organizers, and this identification shapes their un…
Dusting for Fingerprints: Introducing Feminist Standpoint Appraisal
This article argues that feminist standpoint epistemologies help us rethink both the process by which archival value is determined and the archivists' role in that process, leading towards a new methodology, epistemology, and political strategy for appraisal, which I call "feminist standpoint appraisal." Feminist standpoint appraisal inverts dominant appraisal hierarchies that value records created by those in power to justify and consolidate the…
Critical Digital Archives: A Review from Archival Studies
Given the blurring of boundaries between historians and archivists in the digital realm, this article urges historians to pay more attention to discussions surrounding digital records and archival practices emerging from critical archival studies. More specifically, this article identifies and summarizes seven key themes and corresponding debates about digital records in contemporary archival studies scholarship: (1) materiality, (2) appraisal, (…
We Bounce Off Each Other’s Vibe’: The Importance of Symmetrical Intersubjectivity between Interviewer and Narrator
The field of oral history has long theorized the intersubjectivities forged between narrators and interviewers, yet there is still a lingering assumption in some oral history literature that the positionality of the interviewer in relation to the narrator does not matter much to the interview process.This article seeks to challenge these assumptions by reporting on empirical data collected via interviews and focus groups with narrators who told t…
Digital cultural collections in an age of reuse and remixes
This paper explores the question of under what circumstances CI should seek to control non-commercial reuse of digital cultural works. It describes the results of a 2008 survey of CI professionals at U.S. archives, libraries and museums which gathered data on motivations to control access to and use of digital collections, factors discouraging control, and levels of concern associated with different types of unauthorized reuse. Analysis presents …
Khmer Rouge archives: Accountability, truth, and memory in Cambodia
On archival pluralism: What religious pluralism (and its critics) can teach us about archives
Archiving the Unspeakable: Silence, Memory, and the Photographic Record in Cambodia
Archiving the Unspeakable: Silence, Memory, and the Photographic Record in Cambodia
Roughly 1.7 million people died in Cambodia from untreated disease, starvation, and execution during the Khmer Rouge reign of less than four years in the late 1970s. The regime's brutality has come to be symbolized by the multitude of black-and-white mug shots of prisoners taken at the notorious Tuol Sleng prison, where thousands of enemies of the state were tortured before being sent to the Killing Fields. In Archiving the Unspeakable, Michelle …
Toward a survivor-centered approach to records documenting human rights abuse: Lessons from community archives
Defining human rights archives: Introduction to the special double issue on archives and human rights
Seeing Yourself in History
Building on the author's experiences as the co-founder and a board member of the South Asian American Digital Archive (SAADA), this article posits that independent, community-based archives are crucial tools for fighting the symbolic annihilation of historically marginalized groups
Records and their imaginaries: Imagining the impossible, making possible the imagined
False promise and new hope: Dead perpetrators, imagined documents and emergent archival evidence
When those accused of being high-level perpetrators of human rights abuse die before publicly yielding their secrets in legal and archival arenas, victims may simultaneously express relief about the perpetrator's demise and grief that, along with it, possible crucial information about the past is lost forever. Although the accused do not usually directly admit their actions and the teasing out of what actually happened is dependent upon the compl…
Christian Delage. Caught on Camera: Film in the Courtroom from the Nuremberg Trials to the Trials of the Khmer Rouge
The American public first saw footage of German concentration camps in April 1945. The images of starved bodies and corpses shocked viewers, putting to rest any lingering doubts about the enormity of Nazi war crimes, and bolstering support for a then-upcoming international tribunal to bring those most responsible to justice. Not only was film used as evidence, exhibit, and testimony at the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg and subseque…
“To Suddenly Discover Yourself Existing”: Uncovering the Impact of Community Archives 1
Although much published work assumes that independent community archives have an important impact on communities, little research has been done to assess this impact empirically. This article begins to fill this gap by reporting the results of a series of qualitative interviews with academic members of one ethnic community regarding their responses to one community archives. More specifically, this article reports on interviews conducted with Sou…
Imagining transformative spaces: The personal–political sites of community archives
What We Do Crosses over to Activism”
Using data gleaned from semistructured interviews with seventeen community archives founders, volunteers, and staff at twelve sites, this paper examines the relations and roles of community archives and archivists in social justice activism. Our research uncovered four findings on the politics of community archives. First, community-based archivists identify as activists, advocates, or community organizers, and this identification shapes their un…
To go beyond”: Towards a decolonial archival praxis
Dusting for Fingerprints: Introducing Feminist Standpoint Appraisal
This article argues that feminist standpoint epistemologies help us rethink both the process by which archival value is determined and the archivists' role in that process, leading towards a new methodology, epistemology, and political strategy for appraisal, which I call "feminist standpoint appraisal." Feminist standpoint appraisal inverts dominant appraisal hierarchies that value records created by those in power to justify and consolidate the…
A matter of time
A matter of time Chapter one uncovers how dominant Western archival theory relies on Christian progress narratives and asks us to imagine new ways of thinking about records that are not based on linear temporalities. The dominant Western linear progress narrative is rooted in Christian cosmology and represents only one of many ways to think about time. Non-dominant temporalities posed by Hindu and Indigenous traditions, Afro-futurist speculations…
Community archives interrupting time 1
This chapter presents empirical evidence that people served and represented by minoritized identity-based community archives in the United States saw history repeating itself in the oppressive tactics of the Trump administration. More specifically, it reports on focus group data my research team and I conducted with users of community archives serving and representing LGBTQ+ people and communities of color to show how such communities are constru…
Imagining liberatory memory work 1
Drawing on Gould and Harris’s conception of “liberatory memory work,” this chapter further imagines what might constitute emancipation in an archival context. Pulling together the theoretical framing of time in Chapter 1 with the empirical focus group data from community archives in Chapter 2 and the participant observation from SAADA in Chapter 3 , I delineate three main aspects of liberatory memory work: the temporal, the affective, and the mat…
Conclusion
This book has argued that archives are neither about the safety of the past nor the distance of the future, but about enacting political change right now . In order to transform dominant archival practices into liberatory memory work, Urgent Archives , asserts we must rethink and redo the foundational oppressive concepts and structures upon which dominant Western archival theory and practice is based. The book concludes by asking readers to join …
From representation to activation
My previous work has addressed the ways in which marginalized identity-based community archives counter the “symbolic annihilation” of oppressed communities, that is, the ways that predominantly white university and government archives have underrepresented, misrepresented, or completely ignored communities of color and LGBTQ+ communities. 1 Community archives counter symbolic annihilation with “representational belonging,” empowering marginalize…
Critical Digital Archives: A Review from Archival Studies
Given the blurring of boundaries between historians and archivists in the digital realm, this article urges historians to pay more attention to discussions surrounding digital records and archival practices emerging from critical archival studies. More specifically, this article identifies and summarizes seven key themes and corresponding debates about digital records in contemporary archival studies scholarship: (1) materiality, (2) appraisal, (…
Urgent Archives: Enacting Liberatory Memory Work
Urgent Archives argues that archivists can and should do more to disrupt white supremacy and hetero-patriarchy beyond the standard liberal archival solutions of more diverse collecting and more inclusive description. Grounded in the emerging field of critical archival studies, this book uncovers how dominant western archival theories and practices are oppressive by design, while looking toward the the radical politics of community archives to env…
We Bounce Off Each Other’s Vibe’: The Importance of Symmetrical Intersubjectivity between Interviewer and Narrator
The field of oral history has long theorized the intersubjectivities forged between narrators and interviewers, yet there is still a lingering assumption in some oral history literature that the positionality of the interviewer in relation to the narrator does not matter much to the interview process.This article seeks to challenge these assumptions by reporting on empirical data collected via interviews and focus groups with narrators who told t…
Paying It Forward: The Prefigurative Politics of Record Creation
Through analysis of data from interviews with people who shared their stories with two community archives, Texas After Violence Project (TAVP) and South Asian American Digital Archive (SAADA), this article examines how records creators imagine future use and users. Our findings reveal that people create records with concrete ideas of who might access their record and how they might use it. In keeping with community archives research that troubles…
Digital and Traditional Archives Management (16 works) · Political science (13 works) · Sociology (13 works) · Law (12 works) · Computer Science (9 works) · History (9 works) · Oral History, Memory, Narrative Analysis (9 works) · Law (8 works) · Archaeological Research and Protection (6 works) · Philosophy (6 works)