Locating the Black archive
Locating the Black archive
This chapter takes the concept of ‘living heritage’ as a starting point to show the ways in which focusing on tangibility and intangibility, the formal and the informal, can be used to stretch the concepts of archival practice. It highlights the cultural and intellectual traditions, tangible and intangible, found within the Caribbean, Africa, and across the Diaspora. Accordingly, the institutions, organisations, concepts, and practices discussed here have a ‘pre-history’ both internationally and in the UK — a prehistory inseparable from the development of the intellectual and cultural history of African and Caribbean communities in the Diaspora. Despite this, an archival science capable of dealing with these complexities has yet to be developed. The chapter thus considers the ways in which Black-led archival practices in the UK have historically sought to both disrupt and define heritage practices. It makes a claim for the active, political and cultural incursions, disruptions, and interventions in the heritage sector by Black-led archives and heritage practitioners.
Keywords: living heritage, Black archive, archival practice, African and Caribbean communities, archival science, Black-led archival practices, heritage practices, Black heritage practitioners
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