{"id":374,"date":"2015-10-25T19:58:47","date_gmt":"2015-10-25T19:58:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/?p=374"},"modified":"2015-10-26T01:39:45","modified_gmt":"2015-10-26T01:39:45","slug":"shange-new-archival-practices","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/?p=374","title":{"rendered":"Shange & New Archival Practices"},"content":{"rendered":"

Our introduction to Shange’s Archives allowed me to theorize archival space and the process of archiving in new ways. Since our session, I have been pondering\u00a0the significance of Shange’s collection — what makes the archive of a living, black woman, and Barnard alumna, so significant and distinct?<\/p>\n

In pondering this question, I was struck by Shannon Miller’s account of the history of archival work\u00a0and the etymology of the word “archive” from the Greek “arkhe” meaning “magistracy, office, government”. There is a historic\u00a0relationship between the traditional practice of archiving and maintaining governance and control\u00a0of access to information. Understanding this relationship is integral to\u00a0recognizing the unique space and place of the Shange collection.<\/p>\n

The nature of Shange’s work teaches us new archival practices. The concept of physicality, fundamental to\u00a0Shange’s writing, places emphasis on touching something (papers, photographs, jewelry, etc.) that Shange has touched. Emphasizing touch in archival practice counters enforced\u00a0surveillance and use of gloves in archival spaces.\u00a0By\u00a0interrogating the word “archive” rooted in oppressive practices, Shange’s interrogation of grammatical and linguistic constructs is affirmed and reproduced. Interrogating the word comes from an acknowledgment of the limitations of language as well as the desire to create new forms and functions of language.<\/p>\n

\"BC12-03_19781120-4\"<\/p>\n

Barnard Archives<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Sharing the experience of handling \u00a0the items of Shange’s archive, alongside Shange herself, reminded me\u00a0that she continues to be a source of information and that the items found in the archive do not make up all the information we could possibly learn from Shange, the person. Reassigning\u00a0power to Shange, rather than to the archived pieces alone,\u00a0reminds us to not\u00a0limit our interpretative space to the physical archival space. This counters\u00a0the idea of the archive as an authority on information.<\/p>\n

\"8xIqd\"<\/p>\n

During the session,\u00a0we discussed\u00a0“collective understanding” of the intrinsic value of what is to be archived. Sydney\u00a0noted that, in the case of\u00a0black people’s work and livelihoods, it is crucial that black people engage in archiving before a “collective understanding” develops. From my interpretation of her point, I concluded that waiting for non-marginalized people to recognize the intrinsic value of marginalized people’s work is ineffective and unnecessary.\u00a0From\u00a0Shange’s work, we learn the importance of realizing\u00a0self and collective value for people of color in marginalized spaces. Shange’s archive serves as a valuable and accessible space for marginalized people to engage in self and collective reflection and, ultimately, build on Shange’s work, which thrives both within and without her archival collection.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Our introduction to Shange’s Archives allowed me to theorize archival space and the process of archiving in new ways. Since our session, I have been pondering\u00a0the significance of Shange’s collection — what makes the archive of a living, black woman, and Barnard alumna, so significant and distinct? In pondering this question, I was struck by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,57],"tags":[127,9],"class_list":["post-374","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogposts","category-student-blogpost","tag-archives","tag-language"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=374"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":400,"href":"https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374\/revisions\/400"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}