Imagining Futures through Un/Archived Pasts

档案馆是关于未来愿景的协商场所。关于收集、访问或保存哪些内容的决定往往会赋予某些叙述特权，而不是其他叙述。这关系到谁的故事将继续被讲述，如何被讲述，以及谁将被噤声。在冲突后、流离失所和重建的时刻，这些问题尤为尖锐。我们的网络依赖于将来自黎巴嫩、坦桑尼亚、加纳、南非，如果可能的话，还有叙利亚等这些问题最为重要的地区的专业知识联系起来。这些是我们探索和建立平等主义存档实践方法的起点，这种方法允许共存和承认过去的多种经验，并与代际、性别、阶级、种族、地位类别和多个利益相关者进行对话。《想象未来》将档案视为一种内在构建和多重发声的形式。在我们试图处理艰难和有争议的过去遗留问题时，这一点至关重要。我们测试不同意见的方法，促进公开对话和挑战单一的“我们”。在记忆或遗忘方面，利用当地知识和共同决策的存档行为具有独特的权威性。他们反对刻板印象、中产阶级化、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，建立信任，增进理解，揭示共存的叙述，减少群体内部和群体之间的冲突，增强实现可持续和平的潜力。该网络提供了汇集和共同创造知识的机会，这些知识来自很少直接分享思想和经验的地缘政治背景。每一个都代表着未来的不同点：中东危机、非洲冲突后的长期和解，以及欧洲过去的殖民统治。在每一个这样的时刻，档案都有一种独特的力量。我们研究其作用和阐明档案实践有助于促进，而不是压制，公正，和平和包容的社会的未来。迫切需要采取新办法的原因是中东的局势，并力求掌握、支持和加强在非洲冲突后和解的情况下产生的方法。在这个由数十亿外国援助（为叙利亚提供12亿美元）资助的紧张的战后重建时刻，为振兴和稳定提供动力，这是我们项目的潜力最关键的地方。总体规划导致了快速的城市化（在叙利亚从50-80%），有利于社会的一小部分，以当地需求、利益和非纪念性文化遗址为代价。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不稳定条件下的难民和寻求庇护者的利益，其中许多人住在难民营。我们的目标是促进现有档案的开放和敏感利用，以创造新的档案，并阐明尊重多元和不同叙事的平等主义档案实践方法。这将通过在黎巴嫩、加纳和坦桑尼亚跨越不同社会政治和时间背景的4个调查实验室以及在这些实验室之外的重要活动（如委员会）来实现。通过与现有档案、特殊和非传统的原位档案、创造性的开放式数字工具、与不同公众的开放式工作室活动的合作，我们的目标是建立一个共同制作的政策宣言，与理事机构和超国家组织（如ICCROM）进行对话。通过将文化实践作为重要的谈判场所，我们更大的目标是倡导文化被正式承认为一种人道主义需求。

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.