Blake Ebright Reflection #2

A few semesters ago, I took a course about the Global Feminisms Project. The Global Feminisms Project (GFP) is an archive of oral histories about Indian, Nicaraguan, Polish, Chinese, Mexican, and American women in activism and scholarship. As I said in my previous blog post, that course left me with little to no experience with the actual archive itself or with archival processes. Knowing what I know now about Chicana por mi Raza, I would compare the two sites as “New Age Archives,” or as Professor Cotera has called Chicana por mi Raza (CPMR), a Digital Memory Collective. I think CPMR is a little more accessible because it has actual archival documents on the bibliography pages of the women whose oral histories we’ve provided. However, CPMR is limited to a specific part of the globe and does not provide the full interviews the way GFP does.

I am walking away from this course with two pretty important, but unintended, consequences. I’ve learned more about film production than I had ever imagined I would in my time as an undergraduate. I’ve taken this information multiple times this semester and I’ve applied it to my honors thesis in Psychology (in my experiment, I am showing subjects a recording of a research assistant pretending to be a subject in a study, then figuring out whether the subjects empathize with the research assistant based on the difficulty of the task). I’ve also learned a great deal about archiving. Not only have I gained an understanding of the process and the concept of an archive, but I’ve also gained an appreciation for the importance of the archives themselves and respect for the archivists working on them.

Speaking of the time we spent learning about archives, I believe our first theoretical discussion about why archives are necessary, what makes an archive, and whether CPMR is an archive happened in the Bentley. I have to admit, I was excited and simultaneously wary of the course up until that point. Since then, I’ve loved incorporating abstract thought into our learning about the concrete (and in the case of the website, the non-concrete).  This brings me back to another point from my first post; the practice of oral history as a marginalized form of knowledge. The Feminist Thought and Latina Oral History curricula both spoke to the idea of “capital H” History and the history of great men. This kind of history perpetuates the marginalization of those already disregarded by those in power while their histories are still being written.

On a seemingly unrelated note, we used Paris is Burning in Feminist Thought to discuss the repercussions of making marginalized groups more visible. For our Chicanas in the 21^st century, I think it isn’t something that we should necessarily worry about, but something we should be conscientious of as a fact of the past. Within two years of the release of Paris is Burning, all but one of the featured characters in the documentary about Harlem drag balls had been killed in a hate crime or died of an AIDS-related illness.

Returning to the topic of incorporating abstract theory into our learning about archives, I felt as though the class had been properly capped off by our discussion and readings for the last week of class, in which we discussed the legacy and purpose of archives. The free-write was especially helpful in creating our own conceptualization of the issues at hand. Are our histories more protected once they’re actually created? We’re not writing histories of great men, which undoubtedly makes the collection of the history harder, but who does this serve and when do we know we’ve made an important offering? Can we reasonably fly under the radar and get away with saying what we want to say, the “lowercase t” truth? These micro histories concern the patriarchy and the oppressed groups’ advances not only in spite of it, but also their advances against it. Thus, this is the most precarious kind of history to create and back up.

By asking for the memories of the oppressed, those who have been silenced for such a long time, we’re serving the agents of change – be it those who critically witness and work on the histories and then are inspired to do something more in realms of embodied practice, be it the agents who have already attempted change so many years ago (regardless of their success) or maybe just people watching our (published) product. By lending agency to the agents of change-to-be and the agents of the past, does that automatically give them authority? Who can claim authority or shared authority and at what point? If the “archive” is only the process of making the archive, then the ultimate product doesn’t matter anymore – is that ok? We shift the idea of the archive to make the experience of the creator-interpreter the most important thing. Once the experience of creating the archive is the most important thing, is the archive done serving? What more can we ask of it?

On the flip side of archives serving as inspiration tools, I wonder if the archive can be trusted as more than just the enlightening process itself. If history is interpretation of memory, where does that leave us, the creator-interpreters with oral history? Our act of creating a collection and deciding what to archive is inherently an interpretation of the original space. Why are we allowed to put ourselves on a non-interpreter, non-great men, non-etc. pedestal when we, backed by the “great men,” given our authority by working within the oppressive regime, come into a space and create the illusion that we’re letting memories run wild, regardless of their historical accuracy?

We go back to the lab and fix what has been said, present what we want to present, and interpret it through tags and collections and digging through our own lenses. Even with training against bias and against specific lens-using, we are subjects of the history of great men and the society built around them. Is that ok? It’s the best we can do. Are we historian non-historians who add the experience of the archive as our two cents to the interpretation of the item presented? Regardless, we can only do all of this under the auspices of great men, however passive their support is. That is to say, whether it’s financial backing or simply turning a blind eye, if the patriarchy did not want these oral histories reported, they would not be reported. Does that silent acceptance protect us from repercussions of the more indignant great men? Might the great men now claim the history that we uncovered in spite of them, the way they have so many times before? Maybe we should let them claim the history – that may protect the project from invisibility.

I’d like to end on a less cynical note. I’ve talked before about whether it’s important for the archive of the archive to be removed from the archival materials. From what I’ve seen, and written above, this can’t be too important. Like I said, we’re constantly affecting and interpreting the original memories, which turns it all into the “history” of “oral history” (as opposed to just oral memories). It’s exciting, though, that it isn’t its own. It’s exciting that it’s malleable, impermanent, and that everyone can take from it what they will, what they need, and what they can. I concluded my first post with the “hope to be further inspired and prepared to make my own oral history project, perhaps related to the local LGBTQ community.” While I find myself no more, and no less, inspired to take on that daunting task, I’m as inspired as ever to have these theories inform my practice of feminism and to, in turn, allow my practices to inform my theory: a feminist praxis.