Preserving Indigenous Narratives, Empowering African Voices
In an era of global interconnectedness, the preservation of community archives and Indigenous knowledge has become a pressing concern, not just for historians and archivists, but for all who seek to build a more equitable and sustainable future. The Catalyzing African Community Archives for Social Good project, a collaborative endeavor between the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), African partners, and international digital preservation organizations, stands at the forefront of this vital mission.
At the heart of this initiative lies a profound understanding – that the stories, wisdom, and experiences of African communities are essential to addressing the pressing challenges of our time. From climate change mitigation and food security to peacebuilding and reconciliation, the knowledge held within African community archives has the power to catalyze transformative change. Yet, these invaluable resources face considerable threats, from the legacy of colonial oppression to the persistent underfunding of archival institutions.
By fostering a reciprocal partnership that centers African voices, the project seeks to empower community champions, Indigenous knowledge holders, and young information professionals across the continent. Through a “train the trainers” approach, the team will co-develop tailored training materials and provide hands-on support, equipping these vital stewards with the digital preservation skills needed to safeguard their communities’ histories, traditions, and insights.
“Africa is blessed with traditions which can be documented, preserved, and passed on to new generations,” affirms Amb. Dr. Joseph Kiplagat, a Kenyan diplomat and project partner. “Using current digital tools to impart best practices can help mitigate current challenges like peaceful co-existence, environmental degradation, and social/behavioral health.”
Decolonizing Digital Preservation, Fostering Epistemic Justice
At its core, the Catalyzing African Community Archives for Social Good project is a bold step towards decolonizing the field of digital preservation. By integrating African perspectives and knowledge systems into resources originally developed in the Global North, the initiative seeks to dismantle the longstanding inequities that have excluded marginalized voices from shaping the very tools used to preserve their histories.
“Epistemic justice holds that issues of knowledge, understanding, and communication determine how people experience empowerment or disempowerment,” explains Gladys Kemboi, a Kenyan doctoral student at UIUC and a key project collaborator. “This project seeks to establish communities of practice that link the Global North and South, fostering access to peers, social capital, and capacity building – all essential aspects of epistemic network justice.”
Through these collaborative networks, the project aims to challenge the systemic biases and structural inequalities that have long plagued the preservation of community archives and Indigenous knowledge in Africa. By centering the principles of decolonization and epistemic justice, the initiative strives to ensure that Africans are the curators of their own histories, empowered to construct more accurate narratives of their experiences.
Preserving Knowledge, Catalyzing Social Good
The Catalyzing African Community Archives for Social Good project recognizes that the preservation of community archives and Indigenous knowledge is not merely an academic exercise, but a vital tool for addressing some of the most pressing challenges facing the African continent and the broader Global South.
“Political community depends on the narratives by which people make sense of their condition and interpret the common life they share,” observes philosopher Michael Sandel. “The loss of capacity for narrative would amount to the ultimate disempowering of the human subject, for without narrative there is no continuity between present and past, therefore no responsibility, and therefore no possibility of acting together to govern ourselves.”
By digitally preserving and making accessible the invaluable records that document traditional knowledge on topics like food production, ecosystem preservation, climate change mitigation, and peacebuilding, the project seeks to empower African communities to chart their own course towards a more sustainable and equitable future. These digitized resources will be housed in African universities, with the potential for select materials to be preserved in the UIUC Digital Archives, ensuring their long-term accessibility and safekeeping.
The project’s alignment with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) further underscores its commitment to harnessing the power of Indigenous knowledge for the greater good. By integrating diverse knowledge systems, including local, community, and experiential forms of knowing, the initiative contributes to more informed decision-making and the realization of the SDGs.
Building Sustainable Partnerships, Expanding Horizons
The Catalyzing African Community Archives for Social Good project is not merely a top-down endeavor, but a collaborative effort that draws upon the expertise and insights of a diverse array of stakeholders, from African community leaders and knowledge holders to international digital preservation organizations and networks.
At the heart of this partnership is the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, which has long-standing ties to the African continent through its land-grant mission, agricultural programs, and the work of the Mortenson Center for International Library Programs. This institutional commitment to global engagement and the pursuit of the SDGs has provided a strong foundation for the project’s development.
“Our Vice Provost for International Activities has specifically articulated priorities to engage faculty and student activities for impact in the Global South and to provide leadership for innovative partnerships and development,” notes Christopher Prom, the project’s Principal Investigator. “The University of Illinois Library is well placed to support such partnerships, building on a history of prior connections fostered by our Mortenson Center for International Library programs.”
Equally vital to the project’s success is the collaboration with African partners, including institutions such as Moi University in Kenya, the Technical University of Accra in Ghana, and the University of Botswana. These institutions bring a wealth of local knowledge, cultural expertise, and a deep understanding of the unique challenges facing community archives and Indigenous knowledge preservation in their respective regions.
Moreover, the project has forged crucial partnerships with international digital preservation organizations, such as the Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC) and the Knowledge Management for Development (KM4Dev) community. These alliances not only provide access to valuable resources and best practices, but also foster a global network of support and knowledge exchange.
“The desires expressed by team members, and the feeling of international partnership and warmth that developed with KM4Dev, also resonated deeply with goals that the University of Illinois has recently articulated,” Prom explains. “This initiative thus taps into long-held desires to build an international team that would center non-Western voices in how archival and digital preservation theories and practices are adapted and used.”
Empowering African Communities, Preserving Cultural Legacies
As the Catalyzing African Community Archives for Social Good project unfolds, its impact extends far beyond the immediate preservation of historical records and Indigenous knowledge. At its core, the initiative is about empowering African communities to tell their own stories, to safeguard their cultural legacies, and to leverage their unique insights in addressing the pressing challenges of our time.
Through the “train the trainers” approach, the project will equip community champions, Indigenous knowledge holders, and young information professionals with the digital preservation skills needed to identify, digitize, and preserve invaluable cultural heritage materials. These efforts will not only strengthen the capacity of African institutions, but also foster a new generation of stewards dedicated to the preservation and dissemination of their communities’ knowledge.
“African values like Ubuntu address systemic bias through understanding of communities of practice,” Kemboi explains. “Every African country has booming informal agricultural markets where ordinary people access their food. By preserving these narratives, we seek to center partners in working toward achieving justice in areas that bridge local, national, and global communities.”
As the project’s demonstration projects in Kenya and Ghana unfold, showcasing best practices in the digital preservation of Indigenous agricultural knowledge, festival archives, and other community-based records, the team hopes to inspire a ripple effect of preservation and knowledge-sharing across the African continent.
Cultivating a Global Dialogue, Charting a Sustainable Future
By launching the Catalyzing African Community Archives for Social Good project at the prestigious iPRES 2024 conference, the team aims to catalyze a global dialogue on the vital role of community archives and Indigenous knowledge in shaping a more equitable and sustainable future.
“This paper and session seek to introduce the project to the iPRES community, while enabling a discussion and the integration of additional voices from the digital preservation community into the project, prior to its formal start,” Prom explains.
As the project progresses, the team plans to actively engage significant external constituencies, including African host governments, UIUC graduate programs, private foundations, corporations, and international organizations like UNESCO and USAID. By fostering these diverse partnerships, the initiative seeks to ensure the long-term sustainability of its efforts and to amplify the voices of African communities on the global stage.
Ultimately, the Catalyzing African Community Archives for Social Good project represents a bold step towards decolonizing the field of digital preservation, empowering African communities, and cultivating a more inclusive and equitable knowledge landscape. As the project unfolds, its impact will reverberate far beyond the confines of the archive, contributing to the realization of the Sustainable Development Goals and the creation of a world where all voices are heard, and all knowledge is celebrated.
