ARHIVSKI AKTIVIZAM: NOVE FORME I LOKALNE PRIMJENE
ARCHIVAL ACTIVISM: EMERGING CONCEPTS, LOCAL APPLICATIONS

Summary/Abstract: In this essay the authors provide a summary history of archival activism, starting with the seminal speech given in 1970 by radical historian Howard Zinn in which he argued for archivists to rid themselves of notions of “neutrality”, and actively engage in socially meaningful work. The authors identify four different forms that archival activism can take today: independent archiving (i.e., community-based archiving); socially conscious work within government-funded and other “mainstream” archives; research-based activism (e.g., promoting radical history “from below” or institutional transparency and accountability); and socially conscious work by institutionally-independent archivists. The essay describes several examples of local practical applications of archival activism, both actual and proposed, such as the engagement of the Southern California Library in South Los Angeles in community and labor organizing and the National Chavez Center Archives; independent archivists' assistance to migrant fieldworkers in the United States in safeguarding and identifying records documenting their immigration status and employment history; and the recent rediscovery of records of the Women’s Antifascist Front of Yugoslavia by independent researchers and its feminist reinterpretation.

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