tags
New Questions, Next Work
  • Bethany Nowviskie
  • race
  • cultural heritage
  • dh
  • infrastructure
  • cultural criticism
  • social justice
  • Digital humanities
  • Organizing
  • Reform
  • Mutual aid
  • Infrastructure
  • Reflection

We have pathways forward and tantalizing hints, but can scarcely imagine what it will mean to shift from extractive modes of digital research and curation — quantifying, fragmenting, pinning, hoarding — to ones that are generative, healing, open-ended, and which make us whole.

EN
Archives, Information Infrastructure, and Maintenance Work
  • Ciaran B. Trace
  • archives
  • infrastructure
  • Infrastructure
  • maintenance
  • maintenance work
  • humanities scholarship
  • archival work

This article examines the notion of the archive as revealed through a process of infrastructural inversion, with an emphasis on understanding the working information practices of archivists as a prerequisite to any discussion of humanities infrastructure initiatives. Situating the archive as a form of infrastructure and archival labor as a form of maintenance work generates descriptions of archival systems and practices that shine a spotlight on key negotiations and tensions that adhere in a profession that exists in service of others.

EN