A bit about Language

The language of documentary heritage is a tricky thing. While I do not believe any of us involved in this project would identify as semanticists, our collective experience has encouraged us to think a little more precisely about what certain things are called. You may have noticed on this website we tend to avoid two terms in particular: “archives” and “digital repatriation.” It seems important to unpack some of our reservations.

First, “digital repatriation.” Despite the countless Google hits for the term (including a thoughtful Wikipedia page), when it comes to physical objects of any kind, there is a fundamental contradiction between the words “digital” and “repatriation.” The general consensus across English-language dictionaries is that “repatriation” refers to sending someone back to their country of origin. For its part, Wikipedia expands that to include “non-human entities.” Whichever definition you ascribe to, “repatriation” means to send back the thing itself.

When it comes to the stuff of documentary heritage – whether you call them records, artefacts, documents, etc. – the physical thing is a defining part of what makes it the stuff of documentary heritage. Those physical things occupy space, they have odour and texture, they decay, they require management, and they can be interpreted by their users with a greater number of senses. Digital versions of things do all of these things of course, but they do them in limited ways via technology. Physical things exist within ecosystems.

“Digital return” is a more appropriate term, at least for the time being, as it makes no implied claim to reclaim the thing itself. It was introduced to me by Brendan Griebal and Sean Guistini, by way of a session they facilitated at the 2019 Inuit Studies Conference called Bringing it Back: The Reclamation of Inuit Digital Collections, Archives and Knowledge. There are noticeably fewer Google hits for “digital return,” but it is worth pointing out that the Sustainable Heritage Network, “a collaborative project that complements the work of Indigenous peoples globally to preserve, share, and manage cultural heritage and knowledge” has adopted it. It is important that we are being specific about what is being returned.

Second, “archives.” This is a difficult word which tends to create barriers. But unlike “digital repatriation,” the problem with “archives” is more nuanced. For our committee, our concern around this word focussed on its associations for users. “Archives,” in our collective experience, tends to signal something that is specialized, or that is intended for a certain set of users (like researchers).

The International Council on Archives’ definition of the word makes that complexity plain. “If an archive is going to be authentic and reliable” they tell us, “then we need to preserve its context to understand how, why and who created it, its content and its format (the way that it is presented as a document).” I doubt many people would object to this idea in principle, but it begins to go off the rails when you consider who is preserving the context and what criteria they are using for preservation.

Often, the who and the what cater to specialized users of archives for the purpose of research. For users not engaged in developing what the academy calls “research products,” the who and the what can create barriers to access. The Protocols for Native American Archival Materials developed by the First Archivist Circle provides a good framework for how to begin the work of reconciling these approaches but there is one quote from Kim Lawson of the Heiltsuk Nation that gets at the issue: “We’re not looking at an issue paper by paper or record group by record group. It’s a whole system of a way of life. Our knowledge systems don’t make sense without spirituality. We are asking for respect for a system of knowledge.”

“Records” seems more accurate to us as the word takes the things themselves outside of the system of “archives,” and allows them to operate in different ways for different users. The word “records” is not without its own problems, but until we can find something better, we think it creates less of a barrier. You will still see the word “archives” on this website. We are just trying to restrict its usage to the buildings and spaces that hold records.

Words, we know, matter. As we re-introduce these records to the places they came from, we want to make sure the wrong words are not getting in the way.

Mark David Turner