2025 - November and December - page 26
Image details
| Issue number | 404 |
|---|---|
| ISSN | 2632-7171 |
| Publication date | 1st November 2025 |
| Transcription |
magazine Feature longwinded, explanation, to ask impatiently: “but what percentage involvement did we have?” Executives and the decision-makers in institutions also have very different attitudes to this kind of work: some institutions enthusiastically support it, others discourage it, worried about risk and reputation. Although sharing problems and discussing solutions has been beneficial to our network members, it has always been clear that our group of 24 was just the tip of the iceberg. There are broader audiences for this work, and there are outstanding questions and dilemmas, as well as solutions, that should be brought to light. The group wanted to make some of these available to archivists who might find themselves on the frontlines of future projects. With that in mind, over the past twelve months a toolkit has been drawn together, capturing the experiences of archivists for archivists. Three key projects, which came out during this period, were undertaken by the Bank of England, Lloyds of London, and Lambeth Palace. Archivists or researchers involved in these generously shared their experiences of the process, allowing us to feature in-depth case-studies. These attend to the process by which research projects began, as well as the detail of how they progressed. The toolkit then broadens out, focusing on the constituent components of research projects, including research design, communicating with academics and internal and external stakeholders. A Medicine and the Making of Race Conference May 2025 26 section addresses key dilemmas, which participants have seen re-occur in the course of many different projects. Our toolkit is based on the specific experiences of those involved: it is neither a critical review of the institutions themselves, nor is it intended to celebrate them. All the participants in our network recognise that these projects and the processes around them remain imperfect. In particular, the collective experiences of our participants have made it clear that there is a need for more research, training, and dissemination of work around: ● Engagement with descendent communities ● Benchmarking and documenting means of reparations ● Sustainability and legacy for project findings ● Research around the after-effects of such projects Anecdotal evidence suggests that these projects bring net benefits. But this requires further grounding and exploration. How do institutions and their stakeholders feel after these projects? What benefit accrues to those most affected by the histories they reveal? One of the chief findings that links historians and archivists together, is that historical evidence, captured in the records archivists care for and catalogue, can be an important mechanism for achieving organisational and social change. Projects have led to new findings, to recontextualised exhibits and to changing harmful cataloguing terminology: but they have also driven |