Community archives and identities: documenting and sustaining community heritage

该项目将调查社区档案的重要性，特别是这些档案在通过学术和大众公共历史、展览和其他互动产生社区身份方面的作用。虽然这些倡议中有许多具有相对较长的历史，但这些收藏的重要性直到最近才在文化政策和专业组织中得到广泛认识。然而，这些收藏对传统的专业实践提出了许多挑战（档案收藏的范围、与非传统用户群体的关系以及所有权/保管问题）。越来越多的社区互动，包括跨国社区，都位于虚拟环境中，因此本项目还将调查社区创建和使用虚拟社会和文化空间来存储和访问档案材料，并研究传统档案保管方法对保存和访问的影响。在英国，虽然在社区团体和专业人士之间已经有了一些创新的合作，但这仍然是一个研究不足的领域，几乎没有证据或理论来支持和确定良好的实践。该提案的独特之处不仅在于其主题，还在于档案和记录管理、数字人文和文化遗产方面的学者，以及专业档案工作者和社区档案的创建者、用户和保管人之间的合作。社区和社区认同没有固定的定义，而是不断产生和转变的流动、动态的概念，能够得到广泛的理解。在承认这种多样性的同时，该项目将集中精力深入研究四个主要但不完全由种族和信仰定义的社区档案和倡议。虽然这些档案在大小、存在时间长短、资源、实际或虚拟地点和所代表的社区等方面有所不同，但也会有一些共同点，以便确定一些更一般的要点，并在更广泛的背景下进行研究。研究方法的选择，深入的案例研究，由大量广泛的访谈支持，意味着那些最密切参与社区档案的人将有助于塑造本项目将发展和工作的研究框架。该项目将寻求回答的问题包括：社区档案如何促进英国流散社区的身份产生过程，以及它们在建立一个更具凝聚力的多元文化社会方面可能做出什么贡献？流散社区档案的保存和长期可访问性如何有助于学术研究和对这些社区和更广泛社会的理解？实体和虚拟社区档案之间的关系是什么？这些不同的地点如何影响身份产生的方式？档案工作者如何支持社区档案的发展和可持续性？社区倡议对专业理解和实践有何贡献？结果将是更好地理解社区档案倡议在抵制虚假陈述和边缘化方面的作用，更清楚地理解正式档案专业人员与社区档案保管人之间的关系，并就确定和确保重要社区档案（实体和虚拟）的长期可持续性的最佳实践模式提出建议。这些发现将引起文化政策制定者、对社区历史和身份感兴趣的历史学家和文化遗产学者、档案工作者和其他文化遗产专业人员以及社区档案的创造者、使用者和保管人的兴趣。

This project will investigate the importance of community archives, and in particular the role of these archives in the production of community identity via academic and popular public histories, exhibitions and other interactions. Although many of these initiatives have a relatively long history, the importance of these collections has only recently been widely recognised amongst cultural policy and professional organisations. However these collections provide many challenges to traditional professional practices (the scope of archival collections, the relationship with non-traditional user communities and issues of ownership / custodianship).Increasingly the interactions of many communities, including transnational ones, are located in the virtual environment, so this project will also investigate community creation and use of virtual social and cultural spaces for the storage of and access to archive materials and examine the implications for traditional archival custodial approaches to preservation and access. In UK terms, although there have been a number of innovative collaborations between community groups and professionals, this remains a significantly under-researched area with little evidence or theory to underpin and identify good practice. The uniqueness of this proposal lies both in its subject matter but also in its collaboration between academics in archives and records management, digital humanities, and cultural heritage along with professional archivists and the creators, users and custodians of community archives. Community and community identity do not have fixed definitions but are fluid, dynamic concepts that are constantly in the process of being produced and transformed, capable of broad understanding. Whilst acknowledging this diversity this project will concentrate on in depth studies of four community archives and initiatives defined mainly, but not exclusively, by ethnicity and faith. Although these archives will differ in terms of size, length of time in existence, resources, physical or virtual location and community represented, there will also be points of commonality which will allow for the identification of some more general points, and to set the study in wider context. The choice of research methods, in-depth case studies backed up by a significant number of wide-ranging interviews, means that those most closely involved in community archives will help to mould the research framework that this project will develop and work to. Among the questions that this project will seek to answer are:How community archives contribute to the process of identity production among diasporic communities in Britain and what contribution might they make in terms of building a more cohesive multicultural society?How does the preservation and long-term accessibility of diasporic community archives contribute to academic research and understanding of those communities and wider society? What is the relationship between physical and virtual community archives and how do these different sites affect the ways in which identities are produced?How can archivists support the development and sustainability of community archives and what do community initiatives contribute to professional understandings and practice?The outcome will be a better understanding of the role of community archive initiatives in resisting misrepresentation and marginalisation, a clearer understanding of the relationship between formal archive professionals and the custodians of community archives and suggestions regarding best practice models for identifying and ensuring the long-term sustainability of significant community archives, both physical and virtual. Such findings will interest cultural policy makers, historians and cultural heritage academics interested in community history and identity, archivists and other cultural heritage professionals, and the creators, users and custodians of community archives.