Information from Non-Dominant Perspectives

Archives for Black Lives in Philadelphia (A4BLiP) is a loose association of archivists, librarians, and
allied professionals in the Philadelphia and Delaware Valley area responding to the issues raised by the Black
Lives Matter movement. One of its working groups, the Anti-Racist Description Working Group, is addressing
anti-oppressive archival description. Th e project was inspired by Teressa Raiford, a Portland-based activist and
founder of the organization Don’t Shoot PDX, who collaborated with A4BLiP on a conference presentation at the
Society of American Archivists Annual Meeting in Portland, Oregon in 2017.
Th e working group, made up of mostly white women and professionals who work at predominantly white
institutions (PWIs), have created metadata recommendations for archival professionals to address racist and
anti-Black archival description. Th e recommendations are intended to combat the racist structures inherent in
PWIs and in archival description of underrepresented and marginalized groups, in particular those in the Black
community. Th is project came about to improve our work as [predominantly white] archivists who handle
collections about, by, and for people of the Black diaspora.
Th e metadata recommendations were informed by a bibliography of sources members created at the
outset of the project. Recognizing that this issue is neither new nor solved, the bibliography serves to gather and
amplify the work of archivists across the fi eld who are already theorizing and practicing anti-oppressive archival
description. Th e group incorporated some of these works into an annotated bibliography meant to serve as a
supplement to the recommendations. Th e metadata recommendations and bibliography are tools the working
group hopes will help deepen understanding of the complex issue of describing marginalized communities and groups.

Native American communities are sovereign governments. This unique status and associated rights recognized by federal and state law impact the hundreds of organizations in the United States which hold archival collections documenting Native American lifeways.

In April 2006 a group of nineteen Native American and non-Native American archivists, librarians, museum curators, historians, and anthropologists gathered at Northern Arizona University Cline Library in Flagstaff, Arizona. The participants included representatives from fifteen Native American, First Nation, and Aboriginal communities. The group met to identify best professional practices for culturally responsive care and use of American Indian archival material held by non-tribal organizations.

The draft Protocols under development and discussion build upon numerous professional ethical codes as well as international declarations recognizing Indigenous rights and the ground-breaking Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Protocols for Libraries, Archives, and Information Services. (from website)