OVERVIEW AND GOALS

Pluralizing the Archival Paradigm is a two-year project that commenced in July 2005 that seeks to identify the current scope and extent of archival education in the Pacific Rim, and to encourage research and development activities that will promote 1) the development of culturally and politically sensitive education of qualified archival professionals in Pacific Rim communities, especially those which have no local archival education infrastructure; and 2) incorporation of the interests, needs, and cultural beliefs and practices of diverse communities into existing educational programs in the Pacific Rim area.  The project is a collaboration between the directors of two of the largest archival education programs in the region – at UCLA and at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia.  The project is supported through a grant from the University of California Pacific Rim Research Program.

The project looks across national boundaries by means of surveys of archival educators, repositories and other key stakeholders in Pacific Rim nations in Asia, Australia, North and South America and the Pacific island nations.  It has also looked within cultural and ethnic communities such as Indigenous, diasporic and immigrant populations to examine their needs and circumstances.  Indeed, it is the diversity of the Pacific Rim region that poses one of the primary challenges to archival education and to the archival paradigm more broadly.  The interactions of these communities in an increasingly globalized economy and technological and communications environment all raise cultural, social and policy issues, as do the history of past relationships that have resulted in the layering of recordkeeping traditions, issues of replevin and joint national ownership of records as a result of colonization.  The challenges raised by migrant populations as well as the transnational movements of students seeking archival education programs in various parts of the world are also addressed by this research. These issues will be discussed in research workshops comprised of educators and students, archival professionals, and community stakeholders on June 1st and 2nd.

Major research questions

What is the most effective methodology to use to identify key educational needs for specific regions in the Pacific Rim, especially when communities in those regions might not have any existing archival infrastructure or where there may not be a very detailed understanding of how local needs might diverge from the canon being provided through archival education elsewhere?

What might be optimal delivery mechanisms for archival education in different communities and settings?

Is it possible to develop a set of major recommendations, even a manifesto for pluralism, that could be addressed by existing programs to ensure that they better address the diverse needs of a student and practitioner base that may be drawn from across the Pacific Rim, as well as local indigenous and ethnic communities?   Such recommendations might address not only curricular and practical aspects of programs, but also the overarching theoretical paradigm that informs the programs teaching and research activities.