A Layout of the Field

My work and research at the PRCC this summer encompasses a wide variety of “fields,” as the term is sometimes used “to describe a set of organizations linked together as competitors and collaborators within a social space devoted to a particular type of action.”[1] Importantly, as discussed in my last post, there is the field of both local and international focuses within the PRCC’s work itself – community empowerment and self-determination coupled with Puerto Rican independence and national human rights initiatives. Additionally, there is the broad field of archives, history, documentation, and preservation; and more specifically, how these topics relate to communities and identities that have traditionally been underrepresented within the more formal versions of these interrelated fields.

One of my main interests upon entering graduate school was learning about (and continuing to build upon) new methods for how information systems (within library and archival science worlds) can support the visibility of these underrepresented groups, as well as accessibility to their history. In a historical context, this accessibility encompasses and impacts an infinite number of other “fields.” I could go on here about the production of history and societal power, but I will save that for a future post.

So in combining my interests in the establishments and operations of community archives generally (and less formalized archives, even if they are focused more on “non-mainstream” history instead of a specific community), and my fellowship work here in Chicago on building a Puerto Rican focused archives, some of my research has included learning about the Puerto Rican Community Archives that already exist. The most well-known and biggest collection is the Library and Archives at the Center for Puerto Rican Studies (also known as Centro), at Hunter College, City University of New York (CUNY). I was grateful to spend time there talking with the Senior Archivist and Digital Archivist over the past few months, learning about the history of their founding, their mission, and their active community engagement. As an organization/collection that is modeled after Centro’s work, I also was generously granted an audience with the founders and archivists at the Puerto Rican Community Archives that is a part of the New Jersey Hispanic Research and Information Center (NJHRIC) at the Newark Public Library.

There is of course also the PRCC collection of historic materials at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and further collections of Puerto Rican and Latino history in other local institutions. As with all archival topics and historic collections, understanding which organizations are working with related materials and communities is essential to building upon that work in a valuable way.

The other side of my archives and organizations-focused research has centered around the foundation of groups that work outside of the conventional archives ideology. As someone who is interested in social justice and the history of global cultural, social, and political movements, I have been enamored with the collections and exhibitions of Interference Archive for a number of years now. As an archivist and public historian in training, I consider them an incredible reference and model for creatively pushing the boundaries of both of these professions. Operating fully on a volunteer-based model and as a non-profit, the collective work that has been put into building, making accessible, and promoting active use of their collection to a broad and inclusive audience is inspiring to me. Things like the cataloging “parties” that they host provide useful examples for small and largely-volunteer-run organizations like the PRCC to be considering as they continue building their own archive.

Similarly, I learned about a space in Chicago that is currently located just south of Humboldt Park called the Read/Write Library. I could try to sum it up, but their mission statement says best what they do:

“Read/Write Library collects, preserves, and provides access to community media in order to inspire and promote diverse modes of cultural production and civic engagement. We strive to raise the visibility of work produced by Chicagoans of all backgrounds in order to reveal connective threads across neighborhoods, generations, and cultures and to encourage inquiry into and ownership of the historical record. The Library recognizes the contributions that all community members make to co-creating a city and believes that learning to value these stories plays a vital role in building empathy, community pride, and the ability to see oneself as a change agent.” (https://readwritelibrary.org/about)  (Check out this article from The Chicago Reader to learn more about their history and direct work.)

So much of this sentiment ties into the PRCC’s goals for what their archive will be able to do, and I hope to connect with the Read/Write Library in the next few weeks to learn further about their processes and see where there are possibilities for support and collaboration. One of the things that I’ve noticed about the archival community in my past year of graduate studies (and through some informal archival research for other personal projects in the years prior) is that it’s fundamentally collaborative – even when there is the potential for “competitiveness” in terms of collection focuses, there is actually more of an interest in bolstering each other’s work and and creating space for cooperation. So thankfully, I see the PRCC Community Archive and the initiatives that will stem from it as existing in an incredibly supportive field from multiple aspects.

 

[1] Marwell, Nicole P. Bargaining for Brooklyn: Community Organizations in the Entrepreneurial City. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007.