Recognising a kaleidoscopic archive
Working with London Missionary Society records in the geekosphere’
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12628643 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Deborah Lee-Talbot (0000-0001-8055-1141, Deakin University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2024 |
| Volume | 24 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 531-554 |
| Publication date | 2024-08-05 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Archival Science (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1389-0166 • E-ISSN: 1573-7500 |
| Publisher | Springer Nature (PUBLISHER • SG) |
| DOI | 10.1007/s10502-024-09448-8 |
| OpenAlex | W4401327367 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 19 |
This article is an ultra-reflective account of an encounter with London Missionary Society (LMS) records through the Australian Joint Copying Project (AJCP) collections at the State Library of Victoria (SLV) and the home office as socially and materially informed research spaces. The genealogies of surrogate archives are little analysed, yet they have complex pasts worth investigating. As Jasmine Burns (JALSNA 33: 150–167, 2024), the librarian and metadata specialist explained, information about an archive’s ancestry is valuable as it illuminates the history and a pattern of use beyond the original author’s intent. The subsequent discussion shows how I inspect descriptive categories associated with the AJCP LMS microfilmed and digitised records in the custody of SLV, the London School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) and the National Library of Australia, (NLA) showing how meaning was layered onto these records. Extending on the social historian Arlette Farge’s analogy of the archive as a kaleidoscope, I demonstrate the introductory process by which a historian determines absences and presences in the archive and to what extent the initial imperial categories used by archivists and librarians informed my research practices. By analysing the history of the LMS AJCP collection, I demonstrate how these Australian-Pacific artefacts contain layers of knowledge about historical cultures and relationships. The different agendas and experiences of librarians, archivists, and historians—all curators of historical records –have revealed or obscured encounter narratives concerning European and indigenous men and women
Archaeology · Archival science · Art · Comparative historical research · Copying · Cultural heritage · Indigenous · Kaleidoscope · Library science · Literature · Meaning (existential · Media studies · Metadata · Narrative · National archives · Political science · Sociology · Special collections · Visual arts · World Wide Web · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Anthropology · Digital and Traditional Archives Management · Digital Humanities and Scholarship · History · Law · Psychology
The Allure of the Archives
Geekospheres
Stains and Remains
The temple of history
Trove, disability, and researching history
Whose memories, whose archives? Independent community archives, autonomy and the mainstream
The archival sliver
A metadata model for authenticity in digital archival descriptions
Naming places
Missionary Lives
To save the girls for brighter and better lives’
A neglected force
Along the Archival Grain
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |