Description
In "Summoning the Ghosts: Records as Agents in Community Archives," Tai, et al. argue that “members of the communities documented and represented by marginalized identity-based community archives conceive of records as agents, embodied with the voices of past lives, and capable of performing in service of their users.” It follows that when the collection of an individual is archived, that person becomes an archival “ghost.” There is a dearth of literature on what exactly the process of becoming a ghost entails for the donor, but it is an emotional and often difficult process. It follows that there is limited literature on how accessioning archivists can best navigate this delicate exchange. This poster will draw from interviews with archivists to provide practical guidance. It will also contextualize this work within the broader concept of “death work,” which Cole Imperi defines as the labor of people who work with death or bereavement in some form, even if it is not the primary component of their jobs.