Making Space for Community Groups to Access and Shape Archives

Important repositories of vernacular culture, university tradition archives can nevertheless be limited by the research interests of staff and students, as well as disparate donations from the public. While some topics may be treated with great depth, others can be neglected entirely, with the totality often reflecting wider systemic biases of society and university contexts more specifically. When made aware of tradition archives in their locality, individuals and community groups often express a desire to access the repositories and make their own additions. Through community-engagement workshops and projects, university tradition archives can invite these individuals and groups into the world of archives, giving them the opportunity to shape them in a way that reflects their own curiosity and worldview. This paper will consider, through their own words, the experiences of individuals, community group members, and third-sector workers, who have each contributed to the design of archival collection projects in Aberdeen, Scotland, through the auspices of the Elphinstone Institute, University of Aberdeen. These heritage-making processes present unique challenges to participants who must untangle multi-layered concepts such as identity, inclusion, and exclusion across their communities’ pasts, presents, and futures. In listening to and analysing the stories of those involved, we can begin to untangle the layered meanings that participatory projects and archives have for the people and communities involved.