Archival Pedagogies

Editors: James Lowry (City University of New York), Tshepho Mosweu (University of Botswana), Pimphot Seelakate (Chulalongkorn University, Thailand), Magdalena Wisniewska-Drewniak (Nicolaus Copernicus University, Poland).

In 2011, the Pluralizing the Archival Curriculum Group (PACG) of the Archival Education and Research Institute noted that “Archival studies education programs are conceptualized in strikingly similar ways worldwide, largely because of the overarching bureaucratically- and legally-centered paradigms developed and exported from Europe through colonialism, evangelism, mercantilism, and technological developments, and later codified through national and international standards and terminologies” (PACG, “Educating for the Archival Multiverse”, The American Archivist, 2011:74, pp.69-101). 

While the work to critique dominant archival paradigms, recuperate subjugated memory and information epistemologies and practices, and create new archival modes in response and anticipation of social and technological change has been fostered in research and articulated in the realm of theory in major collections such as Research in the Archival Multiverse, and new monographs and journals, and operationalized in policies, procedures, and practices, the pedagogical implications of changing archival thought have been under-explored. Important developments in the teaching of archival studies are sometimes unpublished, and the extant literature on archival education per se has a relatively small footprint. 

This edited collection seeks to bring archival pedagogy into sharp focus, asking: What is the state of the art in archival education today? What are the histories and futures of archival education in different parts of the world, and how do they interact in global discourses and knowledge/power relations? What now constitutes the body of professional knowledge, the essential skills and competencies of the archival curriculum, in which places and why? What modes and methods are being developed and applied to the education of archivists, and within what structures and systems of professionalism, higher education, neoliberalism, etc? How do Indigenous, computational and other technologies of record-making and keeping factor into the content and delivery of archival education?

Although the book will be published in English, the editors are hopeful that students and teachers of archival theory and practice worldwide will consider contributing. To that end, we will explore translation options with prospective authors writing in languages other than English.

The chapters in this book will consider the histories and futures of archival education, the essential knowledge for records work in rapidly changing environments, means and methods for designing and delivering archival education, and the technologies of archive. Chapters in the volume might pose and seek to answer such questions as:

·       How has or can archival education respond to shifts in archival theory over recent years?

·       How has the landscape of archival education changed over recent years?

·       What can archival pedagogy contribute to the development of theory and practice? What does archival pedagogy as theory and practice look like?

·       How has the COVID-19 pandemic altered teaching and learning for archival studies and research? How will archival pedagogy look in the post-pandemic era? What will be the post-pandemic challenges for archival education?

·       Where do today’s norms of archival education come from and do they work for us?

What has been the role of archival education in propagating harmful or beneficial ideas and practices?

·       How have disciplinary inheritances shaped archival education and what results from interdisciplinarity in teaching?

·       What could developments in educational theory, practice and technology mean for archival studies? How might archival studies contribute to the broader field of education?

·       What is the place of archival education in the university? Are current pathways through education and training useful, limiting or exclusionary? What can critical or abolitionist university studies help us imagine for archival pedagogy?

·       Do apprenticeships and other workplace-based educational approaches disrupt, unsettle or complement undergraduate and post-graduate education? How do they benefit the record-keeping mission, and do they threaten notions of professionalism?

·       How have notions of professionalism and professional identity aided or hindered efforts to prepare record-keepers for the socially important work of record-keeping? What part has pedagogy played in this?

·       What are the current approaches to and priorities of continuing professional development and accreditation systems? 

·       What do changing job markets, exploitative labour practices and job and economic precarity mean for archival education? What should they mean for archival education?

·       What do environmental, social and political changes suggest for the archival workforce of tomorrow? How should archival education respond?

Guidance for Prospective Authors

Please submit manuscripts to Magdalena Wiśniewska-Drewniak magwis@umk.pl by 1 October 2023.

Referencing style: APA (American Psychological Association) 7^th Edition

Word range: 5,000 – 6,000 words

The book manuscript will be submitted to Tampere University Press, where it will be peer reviewed, with a view to publishing it as a Diamond Open Access book, possibly in a new open access Information Studies book series.