Imagining Futures through Un/Archived Pasts

档案是关于未来愿景的谈判场所。决定收集、访问或保存什么往往会让某些叙事优先于其他叙事。它关乎谁的故事将继续被讲述，如何被讲述，以及谁被压制。这些问题在冲突后、流离失所和重建的时刻是尖锐的。我们的网络依赖于将这些问题至关重要的情况下的专门知识联系起来：黎巴嫩、坦桑尼亚、加纳、南非，如果可能的话，还有叙利亚。这些是我们探索和建立平等档案做法方法的起点，这种方法允许共存和承认过去的多种经验，跨世代、性别、阶级、族裔、地位类别和多个利益攸关方进行对话。《想象未来》将档案视为一种内在构建的、多声道的。在我们寻求解决困难和有争议的过去留下的遗产时，这一点至关重要。我们测试不同意见的方法，以促进公开对话，并挑战单一的“我们”。利用当地知识和共同决策应记住或忘记什么的存档行为具有独特的权威性。他们反驳了陈规陋习、士绅化、歧视以及对共同历史和社区在全球背景下的地位缺乏认识。我们利用档案的内在力量，因为它有能力建立信任，增进了解，揭示共存的情况，减少群体内部和群体之间的冲突，增强可持续和平的潜力。该网络为汇聚和共同创造来自地缘政治背景的知识提供了机会，这些背景很少有机会直接分享想法和经验。每一个都代表着未来的不同点：中东危机，非洲长期的冲突后和解，以及欧洲的殖民历史。在每一个这样的时刻，档案都有一种独特的力量。我们审查它的作用，阐明有助于促进而不是压制公正、和平和包容性社会的未来的档案做法。迫切需要采取新的办法，这源于中东局势，并力求掌握、支持和改进非洲冲突后和解背景下产生的方法。在这个紧张的战后重建时刻，我们项目的潜力是最关键的。我们的项目由数十亿美元的外国援助(叙利亚获得12亿美元)资助，以推动复兴和稳定。总体规划导致了快速的城市化(从叙利亚的50%到80%)，有利于一小部分社会，代价是当地的需求、利益和非纪念性文化遗址。善意的倡议可能会破坏社区在非物质生活遗产和有形遗产之间的关键联系，从而成为暴力行为。这种麻木不仁助长了宗派分裂的进一步破坏、流离失所和具体化。它还排除了数百万生活在危险条件下的人的利益，如避难所和寻求庇护者，其中许多人在营地。我们的目标是促进现有档案的开放和敏感地使用，以创建新的档案，并阐明尊重多重和不同叙述的平等档案做法的方法。这将通过黎巴嫩、加纳和坦桑尼亚不同社会-政治和时间背景下的4个调查实验室以及它们以外的基本活动，如委员会来实现。通过与现有档案馆、特殊和非传统就地档案馆、创造性的开放数字工具、与不同公众的开放工作室活动的接触，我们的目标是通过与理事机构和国际文化财产保护与修复研究中心等理事机构和超国家组织的对话，共同制定一份政策宣言。我们更广泛的抱负是，通过揭露文化习俗作为重要的谈判场所，倡导将文化正式承认为人道主义需求。

Archives are sites of negotiation about visions of the future. Decisions of what is to be collected, accessed or preserved tend to privilege certain narratives over others. It is about whose story will continue to be told and how, and whose silenced. These questions are acute in moments of post-conflict, displacement and reconstruction. Our Network depends on linking expertise from contexts where these issues are paramount: in Lebanon, Tanzania, Ghana, South Africa, and if possible Syria. These are our starting points to explore and build methodologies of egalitarian archiving practice that allows for co-existence and recognition of multiple experiences of the past, with dialogue across generations, gender, class, ethnicities, status categories and multiple stakeholders. Imagining Futures embraces archives as intrinsically constructed and multi-vocal. This is crucial as we seek to address legacies from difficult and contested pasts. We test dissensus methods that facilitate open dialogue and challenge a singular 'we'. Acts of archiving that draw on local knowledges and joint decision-making in what is to be remembered or forgotten, have a unique authority. They counter, stereotypes, gentrification, discrimination, and the lack of appreciation for shared histories and of community's place in the global context. We use the intrinsic power of the archive for its capacity to build confidence, enhance understanding and reveal co-existing narratives, to reduce conflict within and between groups, enhancing the potential for sustainable peace. The Network provides an opportunity for convergence and co-creation of knowledge, from geo-political contexts that rarely get to share ideas and experiences directly. Each represents a different point in a future: the crisis in the Middle East, the long-term post-conflict reconciliation in Africa, and the colonising past of Europe. Within each of these moments the archive has a distinct power. We examine its role and articulate archiving practices that contribute to a future which promotes, not suppresses, just, peaceful and inclusive societies. The urgency for new approaches stems from the situation in the Middle East, and seeks to capture, support and enhance methodologies arising from contexts of post-conflict reconciliation in Africa. In this moment of intense post-war reconstruction, funded by billions in foreign aid ($1.2 b for Syria), to fuel revitalisation and stability, is where the potential for our project is most critical. Master-plans have led to rapid urbanisation (from 50-80% in Syria), favouring a small sector of society, at the cost of local needs, interests, and non-monumental cultural sites. Well-meaning initiatives can become acts of violence by rupturing communities' crucial links between the intangible lived heritage and the tangible. This insensitivity contributes to further destruction, displacement and reification of sectarian divisions. It also excludes interests of millions who live in precarious conditions as refuge and asylum-seekers, with many in camps.Our aim is to facilitate the opening-up and sensitive use of existing archives to create new ones and articulate methods for egalitarian archival practices that respect multiple and divergent narratives. This will be achieved through 4 investigative Labs across diverse socio-political and temporal contexts in Lebanon, Ghana and Tanzania, and essential activities beyond them, such as the Commissions. Through engaging with existing archives, special and non-traditional archives in-situ, creative open digital tools, open-studio events with different publics, our goal is to build towards a co-produced policy-manifesto, in dialogue with governing bodies and supra-state organisations as e.g. ICCROM. Our wider ambition, through exposing cultural practices as important sites of negotiation, is to advocate for culture to be officially recognised as a humanitarian need.