Re-thinking archiving for increased diversity : Insights from a co-design project with museum professionals and refugees

The design research project Co-archiving Refugee Documentationis based on a collaboration with museum professionals and refugees.The overall aim of the project is to explore and develop collaborative(co-)archiving practices involving underrepresented voices in generatingmaterials for the public archives and museum collections.The underlying assumption is that inviting more people to contributeto the public archives would result in a more diverse and representativerecord of human existence.A co-design process involving museum professionals and refugeesresulted in a design concept for increasing the participationin archives referred to as the Co-archiving Toolbox. The toolboxis designed for archivists and museum professionals to use whencollectingmaterial in the field. It is meant to be administered bya public institution (a museum or an archive), left in the field for aperiod of two weeks, and used by the people who are being documented,that is, the ‘subjects’ of the archive. By applying the archivingpractices included in the toolbox, they are invited to documenttheir life situations with limited interference from the institution.The focus of this paper is on the outcome of the first field test ofthe co-archiving toolbox. The insights gained serve as input to thenext iteration of the concept. The test was conducted at a leisure centrehosted by a non-governmental organisation that organizes on avoluntary basis activities for unaccompanied refugees under 18 years.Seven teenage boys participated in the field test. It turned out thatonly a few of them contributed with material to the co-archiving toolbox.According to the museum professional who worked with the toolbox,some of the boys even seemed to avoid the box. Her impressionwas that the barrier to engage was too high. The boys expressed asense of dejection and wondered who would be interested in hearingtheir stories anyway. Some archival material was however generatedduring field test, mainly written material. Seeing the toolbox in thespecific context of the leisure centre brought forward a clearer pictureof the use of toolbox as very much a situated practice, where thephysical placement and the specifics of the field influence the kind oftools applied and the way they are used. Whatever the boys’ reasonswere for not feeling motivated to contribute to the archive, an importantlesson to learn is that the toolbox ought to be carefully adoptedand adjusted according to the specific context and user group.The final iteration of the Co-archiving Toolbox will be designed as a completely open source co-archiving toolbox, where both the physical box in form of files for replicating the build, all materials and the handbook are made available for download, re-production and replication. The open source kit will be distributed via online maker communities. The results of this research project will thus reach beyond the academic community and be made accessible to professionals who are interested in continuing to innovate and create better conditions for increased participation in and access to our common archives