Identity, records and archival evidence: exploring the needs of Forgotten Australians and Former Child Migrants
2014; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 35; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/23257962.2014.951032
ISSN2325-7989
Autores Tópico(s)Ego Development and Educational Practices
ResumoAbstractArchival records are of tremendous value to care leavers; however, this community faces many barriers when attempting to access records about their time in institutions as children. This article explores the particular needs of care leaver communities in Australia and discusses a digital resource (www.findandconnect.gov.au) designed to improve access to records and public knowledge about the history of child welfare. This web resource is one example of how archives and archivists can encourage ‘strangers’ into the archive and help communities to use records to support identity construction and historical justice. The authors contend that consultation and collaboration with stakeholders outside of the archive are crucial. The article also describes how usability testing and user feedback led to significant redesign of the web resource so that it best meets the particular needs of care leaver communities.Keywords:: archivescare leaverscommunitiesjusticerecords continuum Notes 1. This article came out of a presentation at the Archives & Records Association UK and Ireland Conference in Cardiff, in August 2013. 2. ‘Few of us depend upon official records for our identity or history. We may throw away old papers about ourselves but that is our choice. Unlike children who have been in public care we do not depend on the often fragmented and formal records of others. Yet, for many adults, such information can be critical in fully understanding the past … Sadly, previous retention requirements have not always recognised this aspect.’ Association of Directors of Social Services (UK) quoted in CitationGoddard, Feast, and Kirton, “Childhood on Paper,” 51. 3. See CitationBastian, Owning Memory. 4.CitationBastian, “Reading Colonial Records,” 282–3. 5. See CitationMcCarthy, “Mapping the Past.” 6.CitationKetelaar, “Sharing,” 50. 7.CitationPrime Minister, Transcript of Address at the Apology. 8.CitationDepartment of Social Services, Find and Connect Services and Projects. 9.CitationBringing them Home, Report of the National Inquiry.10.CitationSenate Community Affairs References Committee, Lost Innocents.11.CitationSenate Community Affairs References Committee, Forgotten Australians.12.CitationSenate Community Affairs References Committee, Forgotten Australians and Lost Innocents Revisited.13. See CitationPugh and Schofield, “Unlocking the Past,” 11. For an Australian perspective, see CitationSwain and Nell Musgrove, “We Are the Stories,” 4–14.14. See CitationHorrocks and Goddard, “Adults Who Grew Up in Care.”15.CitationSelakovic, Transcript of Presentation.16. Quoted in CitationRecords and Information Management Professionals Australia, Submission 2.17. Examples of the directories produced since the ‘Bringing them Home’ report include: Thinee and Bradford, Connecting Kin; A Piece of the Story; Department of Families, Missing Pieces; Boyce, For the Record and George, Finding Your Own Way.18.CitationDowning et al, “An Educative Intervention,” 118.19. Ibid., 117.20. In Australia, Confirmation of Time in Care or COTIC is required to access many government services for Forgotten Australians. Many care leavers find themselves in a ‘Catch-22’ situation; due to their lack of appropriate identification, they are denied access to the very information they need to prove their identity, or to establish their status as a care leaver.21.CitationSenate Community Affairs Reference Committee, Forgotten Australians, 277.22.CitationThe Guardian, March 19, 2014. This article reported that new statutory guidance is being developed for local authorities, setting out their obligation to provide comprehensive information and proper support to care leavers in the UK.23.CitationOmbudsman, Investigation into the Storage and Management, v.24. Ibid., 6.25. See http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/royal-commission-into-institutional-responses-to-child-sex-abuse-request-the-release-of-our-files.html.26.CitationSenate Community Affairs References Committee, Australian Government's Response.27.CitationSenate Community Affairs References Committee, Forgotten Australians and Lost Innocents Revisited.28. Resources from the Who Am I Project. http://www.cfecfw.asn.au/know/research/sector-research-partnership/partnership-projects/out-home-care/who-am-i, accessed April 16, 200929.Proof Committee Hansard, March 30, 2009, 35.30. See CitationHumphreys and Kertesz, “Putting the Heart Back into the Record,” 30.31. See CitationMcKemmish and Piggott, The Records Continuum.32.CitationDepartment of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, Find and Connect Service’.33.CitationMcCarthy and Evans outline these principles in “Principles for Archival Information Services,” 54–67.34.CitationMaier, “Overcoming the Past?” 301.35. See, for example, ‘Ballarat Orphanage (1909–1968)’, Find & Connect Web Resource. http://www.findandconnect.gov.au/ref/vic/biogs/E000031b.htm, accessed April 11, 2014.36.CitationO'Neill, Selakovic, and Tropea, “Access to Records for People,” 34–35.37.CitationReed, “Reading the Records Continuum,” 20–21.38.CitationMcCarthy, “Mapping the Past,” 1.39.CitationSenate Community Affairs References Committee, Forgotten Australians.40. The value of structured, network-based online public knowledge spaces is explored in Gavan CitationMcCarthy, “Mapping the Past,” 4–5.41. eScholarship Research Centre. http://www.esrc.unimelb.edu.au/, accessed April 17, 2014.42.CitationMcCarthy, Smith, and Jones, “Looking Beyond the Archive.”43. EAC-CPF. http://eac.staatsbibliothek-berlin.de/, accessed April 17, 2014.44. Online Heritage Resource Manager (OHRM). http://www.esrc.unimelb.edu.au/about-us/informatics-lab/ohrm/, accessed April 17, 2014.45. Find & Connect Web Resource User, Personal Communication, May 2013.46. Greg Baker, speaking at a Find and Connect Web Resource Workshop, October 2012.47.CitationFind & Connect Web Resource, “Mid-Term Review Report.”48.CitationFarrelly, “We Should Revere the Keepers.”49.CitationPenglase, “Interviewed by Susan Marsden.”50.CitationValderhaug, “Memory, Justice and the Public Record,” 20.51. Ibid., 21.52. Ibid.53.CitationMcKemmish, Upward, and Reed, “Records Continuum Model,” 4451.54.http://www.ica.org/13619/toolkits-guides-manuals-and-guidelines/draft-principles-of-access-to-archives.html55.CitationHarris, “Claiming Less, Delivering More,” 133.Additional informationFundingThe Find & Connect web resource project is funded by the Australian Government Department of Social Services (previously the Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs).
Referência(s)