A Weapon and a Tool: Decolonizing Description and Embracing Redescription as Liberatory Archival Praxis

This article uses Indigenous decolonizing methodologies and Critical Race Theory (CRT) as methodological and theoretical frameworks to address colonial and racialized concerns about archival description; to argue against notions of diversity and inclusion in archival descriptive practices; and to make recommendations for decolonizing description and embracing redescription as liberatory archival praxis. First, we argue that extant descriptive practices do not diversify archives. Rather, we find that descriptive work that isolates and scatters aims to erase the identifiable existence of unique Indigenous voices. Next, we argue that while on one hand, the mass digitization of slavery-era records holds both the promise of new historical knowledge and of genealogical reconstruction for descendants of enslaved peoples, on the other hand, this trend belies a growing tendency to reinscribe racist ideologies and codify damaging ideas about how we organize and create new knowledge through harmful descriptive practices. Finally, working specifically against the rhetoric of diversity and inclusion, we challenge the ways archives claim diverse representation by uncritically describing records rooted in generational trauma, hatred, and genocide, and advocate for developing and employing decolonizing and redescriptive practices to support an archival praxis rooted in justice and liberation, rather than more palatable (and less effective) notions of “diversity and inclusion”